March 2008 - roborn - blog bus

The VIA Robotics 。.


Initiative. .


The VIA Robotics Initiative is part of a greater effort 。.


in 2003 for VIA to participate within the robotics community,. .


and to explore innovative new applications for VIA's "Total 。.


Connectivity "vision.. VIA sees massive potential for growth in..


the robotics space through close cooperation between the 。.


software, hardware and mechanical engineering communities and. .


the establishment of open development standards。. The VIA 。.


Robotics Initiative is the first step by VIA to join in that. .


cooperation and take on a leadership role in enabling the 。.


creation of highly integrated, low power, and open x86. .


platforms that will help drive future robotics innovation。.


Robotics Today. .


The 。.


maturation of key PC industry technologies, notably wireless. .


networking and continued reductions in form factor and costs, 。.


is making it possible for robotics to begin to realize its. .


full potential in commercial as well as industrial, space, and 。.


military environments. . Efforts are also being made to create. .


open and standard software implementations for key robotic 。.


control functions. . Software projects like The OROCOS (Open Robotic Control..


Software) Project aim to further promote the widespread 。.


development for robot projects and business opportunities. .


The Right Robotics 。.


Development Platform. .


With 。.


our highly acclaimed VIA EPIA Mini-ITX mainboard series, VIA. .


is able to offer an unrivaled range of highly integrated, low 。.


power, x86 platforms that are ideal for robotics designs. .


Available in a variety of processor speeds of up to 1GHz and 。.


packing in full set of advanced connectivity and digital media. .


features, VIA EPIA Mini-ITX platforms deliver proven 。.


performance and functionality on a tiny, low power 17cm x 17cm. .


footprint that can be integrated into highly compact 。.


enclosures. .

The native x86 environment of the VIA EPIA Mini-ITX 。.


also provides a mature software development platform for both. .


Microsoft Windows?and a variety of Linux operating systems, 。.


enabling the rapid and affordable implementation of new. .


robotics applications。. The VIA EPIA Mini-ITX also has an 。.


aggressive roadmap of new products, which include features. .


such as dual LAN support, integrated compact flash and Card 。.


Bus, higher processing speeds and lower power and fan. .


requirements。. The rapidly evolving feature set of the VIA EPIA 。.


Mini-ITX will continue to expand the range of options and. .


platforms suited for different autonomous vehicle and robotics 。.


applications. .

VIA Technologies and Robotics 。.


Projects. .





part of VIA's leadership role in robotics we are working. .


closely with academic and institutional projects that 。.





robots deal with key issues such as navigation, mobility and 。.


design. . Two such examples include:. .

SRI 。.


International Centibots Project. .


This is a joint project 。.


with Stanford, University of Washington, and ActiveMedia. .


Robotics, to design, implement and demonstrate a computational 。.


framework for the coordination of very large robot teams,. .


consisting of at least 100 small, resource limited robots, on 。.


indoor reconnaissance tasks including mapping, tracking and. .


guarding。. The Centibots project is primarily funded by Defense 。.


Advanced Research Projects Agency in an effort to develop new. .


technologies for urban surveillance through distributed 。.


robotics. . The "Amigobots" are equipped with VIA EPIA 5000. .


Mini-ITX mainboards。.

Ventures such as the Centibots project will have a far. .


reaching influence on the way potentially dangerous tasks are 。.


handled such as bomb disposal, intruder detection, hostage or. .


military actions, hazardous waste exposure and disposal, and 。.


searching earthquake, fire or chemically damaged sites -. .


essentially any perilous complex task that presently might 。.




The Centibot project robots operate autonomously, can 。.


intercommunicate with each other or a central server, and if. .


one fails its task another can pick up from where the job is 。.


left undone. .

The Centibots Project website:。.


http://www. . Ai. . Sri. .com / centibots /. .

Virginia Tech's 。.


Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Team (AUVT). .


To further 。.


the engineers at Virginia Tech's practical experience in the. .


field of robotics, AUVT was founded in January of 2001。. The 。.


mission of AUVT is to provide a forum in which students can. .





competition, which requires a multidisciplinary approach. . To. .


that end, they are constructing and autonomous submarine that 。.


will compete in an underwater challenge course that requires. .


self navigation and propulsion as well as target and object 。.


recognition. .


The PC brains behind the AUVT submarine is a VIA EPIA 。.


Mini-ITX mainboard, providing the key processing power for the. .


necessary visual recognition software programs while 。.


minimizing the battery drain with the EPIA's low power VIA C3. .


processor。.


AUVT has grown into a team of nearly 50 students of. .


several backgrounds, including Aerospace, Ocean, Electrical, 。.


Computer, Mechanical, and Industrial Engineers, Computer. .


Scientists, and Business and Marketing students all 。.


interacting to fully design and compete in a collegiate. .


competition sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) 。.


and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. .


(AUVSI)。.

Justin Hayes is the team leader for AUVT. . In an. .


interview on VIA ARENA he gives excellent insight into the 。.





cooperation between a variety of fields and how they came to 。.


chose VIA's EPIA Mini-ITX for their submarine. .


Systems architect and engineer Judith Myerson explains the ins and outs of wireless robots: their components, their shortcomings, and how they can interact in a competitive or cooperative team within professional environments . . Learn how smarter robots can relieve us of the most tedious - and dangerous - tasks. .

Wireless robotics can make our lives easier, safer, and more enjoyable。. While the bulk of wireless robotics is currently in research mode, robotic technologies are becoming more available。. Then, I'll talk about how the robot works alone or with others in a competitive or cooperative team in office, industrial, and military environments。. Finally, I'll provide a list of their shortcomings - but not without suggesting development solutions to overcome them. .

The sum of a robot's parts。.


Robots come in different body parts, either as a single mobile machine or assembled as a humanoid. .For example, a wireless robotic arm can gently lift breakable items (eggs) or relieve humans of monotonous, precise tasks, such as sweeping。. Robots can also perform dangerous tasks。. Sea divers, for instance, use a wireless underwater robotic machine to retrieve hard-to-reach items in loosely embedded rocks, which could potentially fall apart when disturbed (see Darrick Addison's "Introduction to Robotics Technology" in Resources)。.

With a face or without, all robots come equipped with one or more mechanical devices and sensors (primarily vision and pattern recognition). .Many robots have wireless capabilities to allow them to interact with external environments, perhaps guided by human agents. .

But all robots have some type of a brain in any body part。. A robot's brain is usually comprised of microcontroller systems (MCUs), like the CPUs of your PCs and laptops。. These robotic brains, however, are not for general use; they likely perform specialized tasks such as face or fingerprint recognition。.

A robot and its environment. .


How a robot interacts with its environment depends on how it learns while performing an assigned task。. According to David Bruemer and Ron Rujam in "Behavior-Based Robotics: Robot Learning" (see Resources), a robot that must collect rock samples from a distant planet "may have plenty of time to learn new strategies for traversing the planet surface。." This means the robot must be able to adapt its behavior to various situations it cannot foresee -- without human intervention。.

In contrast, this same robot might not have enough time to learn how to respond in a battlefield, where quick human responses are crucial to winning the war. .That robot must get military training on a site away from the battles to learn new motions to perform various tasks。.

Not all robots can be fully autonomous; some cannot handle or learn new behaviors in unexpected or unfamiliar situations. .These robots must rely on adjustable autonomy (see "Adjustable Autonomy for Marsupial Docking" in Resources), allowing human agents to intervene for assistance and guidance。.

Three Cs: cooperation, competition, and control. .


Wireless robots can interact as a cooperative team (marsupial robots) or as a competitive team (for example, legged soccer player robots) with varying degrees of control。.

Marsupial docking. .


"Should the mother's eyesight (her computer vision) begin to fail, for example, her kids will guide her back to their home using wireless sensors and adjustable autonomy..Marsupial robots are useful in search and rescue missions, performing repetitious tasks, and handling hazardous materials。.

In an industrial scenario, a parent robot acts as the supervisor, while the smaller robots assume the role of office assistants in various departments. .When the day begins, the supervisor marches to a designated spot and rolls out the office assistants。. The supervisor then commands them when and how to do the repetitive tasks for their human colleagues and when to return to the supervisor - for an overnight rest or other duties. .Marsupial docking is still in research mode, but this scenario is possible using wireless technologies。.

Robotic soccer players. .


The problem with marsupial robots is that they work together as a cooperative team without an element of competitive drive。. As shown by the RoboCup games, friendly robotic competition is a good example of "the intelligent multi-agent cooperation and control in a highly dynamic environment.." (see RoboCup 2001 Overview in Resources), meaning that competition not only concerns cooperation, but also control。.

The RoboCup games take place once a year on a green-carpeted field. . What makes the game so interesting is that each player has one type of vision: global or local, with adjustable autonomy capability。. Those with global visions carry an overhead camera like a hat and communicate wirelessly with a PC off the field to "identify and track robots as they move around the field" (RoboCup 2001 Overview) . . Those with local visions already have attached sensors, allowing them to process information onboard or transmit it wirelessly to the PC for further processing. .

Making robots smarter。.


Bruemer and Rujam divide the implementation of robot learning into four groups: artificial neural networks, reinforcement learning, evolutionary learning, and learning by imitation. .The first type takes a supervised approach, while the next two allow unsupervised approaches (to some extent)。. The fourth approach, learning by imitation, uses a biologically-inspired development paradigm to enable the robot to emulate. .

The problem with these approaches, however, is that they are all task-oriented。. I suggest adding motion-oriented learning: To learn a new motion, a mobile office assistant robot must be knowledge-oriented and able to utilize advanced expert systems on small chips embedded in its brain。.

You can also classify robots that can reason and make decisions in an office. .You could implement rudimentary reasoning capabilities, for example, by applying fuzzy logic to problems of AI, robotics, and expert systems。. Research work in these two classification types is currently underway. .




If you have more than one robot in an office, the robots might cooperate with each other depending on the way they are built and the degree of sophistication of their pre-programmed learning behaviors。. All robotic office assistants are equipped with wireless technologies to relieve roaming workers and business travelers of repetitive tasks。.

The following describes how you can use wireless technology to communicate with or even call up a robotic office assistant (the one who can speak, sit, look for files, and so on) from two perspectives: Roamers: Using the IBM High Rate Wireless LAN PC card, for example, a worker can roam the office with his ThinkPad while giving instructions to his robotic office assistant (up to 100 meters from the LAN, see http://www


Mobile office users: With Nokia mobile communications and IBM e-business products and services, a business traveler can use any Wi-Fi-certified LAN card for public wireless connectivity at airports, hotels and other public buildings to access the Internet and his corporate intranet wirelessly (see "Using Ada-Based Robotics to Teach Computer Science" in Resources)。. Wi-Fi certification ensures the interoperability of wireless devices using the IEEE 802。.11b standards。.

While many robots are driven by AI software, the current trend promotes open-industry robot control software to benefit reuse in various robotics projects. .RoboML (Robotic Markup Language) is "designed to support communication between human-robot interface agents, as well as between robot-hosted processes and between interface processes。." (Addison)。. However, SOAP, which transports RoboML, is not always interoperable. .

While some industrial robots can perform an office task the same way every day, we might see an emerging learning-based robot that can adapt its behavior based on some information it receives -- to learn new skills and motions each day . .

Defeat the defects。.


While you might enjoy the marvels of a mobile robot in your offices, you must consider some of the pitfalls associated with them. .However, don't be discouraged; here are some ways you can overcome the pitfalls:。.

Pitfall 1: Vibration. . Many robots vibrate due to their fast motors. . Vibration can cause a robot to move from its designated location and not perform its task successfully. .Solution: Test the robot for stability and reliability and change parts when necessary。.

Pitfall 2: Overload. . A robot can overload when it underutilizes tasks with respect to its speed. .Solution: Change the design to properly balance out the tasks and the speeds needed to perform those tasks。.

Pitfall 3: Development. . Using C and C + + to program your robot might cause problems with arrays and pointers. .

Pitfall 4: Security。. Hackers can exploit a robot's vulnerabilities and turn it into a weapon or completely disable it。. Solution: Install safeguards to counter these vulnerabilities。.

Solution: Educate users on what robots can do (learning tasks and motions) and cannot do (reasoning and making decisions)。.

Pitfall 6: Viruses. . PCs that are wirelessly communicating with robots might contain viruses. . Solution: Install anti-virus programs and present security awareness programs for programmers and users. .

Pitfall 7: Dimensions。. The mouse can only provide two-dimensional positioning for a three-dimensional robot。. Solution: Use a program that lets you create and view a three-dimensional robot or a game of robots in progress. .

Pitfall 8: Batteries。. Battery power can wear off and slow down, for example, the speed of the arm and the agility of its fingers。. It can cause the fingers to accidentally drop an egg, creating a mess on the floor. .Solution: Implement power management software that can sound an alert when the robot reaches a low power level; redesign the robot to lengthen the battery life; or switch to better-grade batteries。.

Pitfall 9: Analog to Digital Conversion. .When using wireless technology for robot communication, human agents and external objects are impacted by the technological limitations in converting analog inputs into digital outputs。. For instance, the conversion process can distort soft sounds in voice recognition (analog "hear" converted to digital "held"). .Solution: Take advantage of conversions not significantly affected by technological limitations。.

Pitfall 10: Bandwidth. . Bandwidth problems during wireless transmissions might cause a sensor, say vision, to produce jittery outputs. .Solution: Optimize bandwidths so the human eye cannot notice the jittering。.

Preparing for robotic living. .


This article is one of the first to discuss wireless robotics from an integrated approach -- the next step in the evolution to higher levels of robotic technologies。. As we prepare for a future with wireless robots, it's important to consider the security risks involved. . Wireless networks are guaranteed to become more complex as we drive robotics to maturity. .To mitigate the risks and correct security flaws, risk assessment and security monitoring programs must be put in place。. Then, the workforce can truly benefit from wireless robotics。.

Resources "Introduction to Robotics Technology," (developerWorks, September 2001) by Darrick Addison, covers mechanical design, sensory systems, electronic control, and robotic software. .


"Behavior-Based Robotics," by David Bruemer and Ron Rujam, discusses the development of intelligent behavior in mobile robots。. (See the "Robotic Learning" section。.) 。.





The The First RoboCup American Open was held at Carnegie Mellon University April 30-May 4, 2003。. Both two-legged and four-legged robots participated。.


Learn more about RoboCup 2001 from The Robotics Institute, Carnegie-Mellon University. .


The Wi-Fi Alliance is a non-profit international association that certifies interoperability of wireless LAN products, based on IEEE 802。.11 specs。.


Download the Easy Wireless Essentials from IBM. .


"Using Ada-Based Robotics to Teach Computer Science" discusses motivations for choosing Ada over other high-level languages, and a particular implementation over possible alternatives。.





"Wireless Data Virtualization," (developerWorks, May 2003) also by Judith Myerson, serves up definitions of four types of virtualization, traces their evolution, and explains how to build virtualization stacks . .


About the author。.


Judith M. . Myerson is a systems architect and engineer, and a freelance writer. .Her areas of interest include middleware technologies, enterprise-wide systems, database technologies, application development, network management, distributed systems, wireless technologies, robotics, component-based technologies, security, cryptography, and project management . . She is the editor of the Enterprise Systems Integration Handbook, Second Edition (Auerbach). . You can contact her at jmyerson @ bellatlantic. . Net. .


This is PINO robot developers Hiroaki Kitano on robot industry of the future development trend of some perspective.


Number of robots humanoid robot only 10% to 15%. However, there are a variety of shapes: a robot on wheels, snake-type robots, six feet, and the robot manipulator and so on. As biological, the robot also has a diversity of species. .

Humanoid robot is a lot of people interested in a class of robots, but is not necessarily better than the other robot. An advanced and does not represent a whole-of-the-art. Human perception, behavior, and entertainment to engage in scientific research, the anthropomorphic robot as a scientific research platform is very valuable.

Robot industry is huge, worth emphasizing that, where "the robot industry" should be "robots technology" industries, or call RT industry. As the IT industry is not limited to the same PC, RT industries, including all related robotics industry. .

Robot industry market prospects.

To monitor the cameras, for example, can automatically track suspicious surveillance cameras added to perceive and moving parts. As a result, the industrial robot may be the same as the auto industry a major industry. However, this market is not ready, needs people to develop. Currently, most people have not even recognized by the robot technology in the end what can be achieved. .

It is expected that the future will be a lot of the risk capital and entrepreneurs to invest in small enterprises, competition in the market, many of them will fail, but some of the successful enterprise will become the industry like Microsoft and Intel such giants. We currently do not have such a mature industrial environment.

However, even now you can also find the robotics market, the problem of finding the most need for such technology areas as appropriate De applied. Robot technology must solve problem of high costs, and reduce the volume. Technology is a necessary condition for success, but not sufficient condition. To achieve success in new markets, technology may account for only 30% of the remaining 70%, including sales, customer satisfaction and other factors. .

Robot is integrated in various disciplines, including software, hardware, machinery, devices, electronics, a variety of application concepts, marketing, etc..

Faster processor. .

The next generation of robots will need to use a faster processor, faster than a hundred times now, so that we can achieve real time display system, advanced real-time decision-making process and sensor information read. Using a faster processor this point for the development of robot technology is very important.

Secondly, we need some innovation in materials technology. Need to use the soft structure, using the artificial "muscles" materials to replace traditional motor and gears. .

Third, the artificial intelligence (AI) and the perception of being made some progress, but also the need to improve the robot's learning ability, the robot must be able to learn to adapt to the environment. In addition, the robot must be able to fully based on built-in instructions, written in application specific control directive to achieve the required operations.

Low-level instruction and learning based on combining the formation of adaptive instruction. For example, suppose a robot move around just in, the process is actually controlled with the instructions, but the robot must deal with many different conditions. For example, in a 5 mm step walk on the floor. Possible conditions for all programming is unrealistic, so people should give the robot high-level command, the robot through learning and adaptation to get the command. This technology is necessary for us to develop the robot. .

But this command and football coach, soccer coach in command in spite, but on the pitch of more complete by themselves. While the robot at the end of the judgment and decision-making should be left to the human intellect. I don't think we will see the wisdom of human-like robot. Of course, if the employment of a person than a robot, I personally prefer my colleague is the man instead of the robot.




Sony in 1999 launched the "pet" robot Aibo followed in November 2000 for a humanoid robot introduced SDR-3X. But shortly after the launch of the SDR-4X allegedly than the first generation in performance has been greatly improved.

Honda from 1986 began to study two-legged walking technology, in November 2000 the company announced the launch of the walking robot called Asimo, Honda's robot research marks the first milestone erected. Earlier this year, Honda's Asimo began to rent to other companies and public facilities such as museums. .

While Sony and Honda in the robotic field are in a leading position, but the strategic focus is different. "Sony focused on entertainment robot, I personally think that entertainment robot will occupy a larger market share. "Sony Executive Vice President and Director of the Sony digital biological laboratory Toshinobu Doi said:" practical robots are not required to use both legs or four legs to walk. Robot basic techniques are the same, at this point that Sony has many advantages compared to competitors. ” 。.

The other hand, Honda is exploring the study of robots as human companions, the company leader in robot research, senior chief engineer Masato Hirose claimed: "Our research goal is to live like robots, like humans, it can be to people The go everywhere, the tools used by the owner. ". .

Biped robot technology.

Currently, once considered the most difficult of bipedal walking robot technology has made great progress in the research. The first RoboCup humanoid robot Union has been organizations from eight countries, a total of 12 teams to conduct research and development, some robots can already be walking and football. .



Currently researchers are studying bipedal walking ways and means, based on zero moment point control (ZMP) walking control technology has been extensive research on. Honda's Asimo and Sony's SDR-3X/4X ZMP control techniques are used, but there are other more effective to create a stable and secure running of the new method. .

For example, Waseda University Professor of mechanical engineering, Atsuo Takanishi has developed with Pentium III 850MHz driven legs walking mechanical device WL-15 to demonstrate a new parallel linkage walking mechanism.

The process of human walking, including hip, knee and ankle joints of continuous movement, mainly in series up action. Bipedal walking robot technology instead of using steel bones and muscles with the implementation of mechanical devices to reproduce the human body instead of the movement, but can connect more than one joint muscles, live in motion when a parallel mechanism of action. WL-15 lies parallel link mechanism. Takanishi explained: "We want to prove, by creating a parallel mechanism and the serial mechanism, it is possible to achieve biped walking robot.". .

The prototype of the WL-15, one leg consists of three sets of double-cylinder mechanism, the pelvis, six cylinders convergent in the feet, this means no knee WL-15. Pelvic exercise direct transmission to the ankle. WL-15 can step or two seconds of 90 degree rotation. Each block consists of a mechanical device to drive, six parallel execution mechanism to move the layout with one leg, and traditional legs walking system, each implementing a mechanism of load becomes smaller. Takanishi said: "it to a lower torque handling a heavy object. At present it is about 20 kg payload, the design objective is to carry a person. We call biped walking robot, a few years we have developed a walking wheelchair. . ".

There are some other attempts, such as the nervous system-based model of Adaptive dynamic walking technique, its target is uneven ground smooth running. The next big challenge is run, the researchers pointed out that the current motors and implementation has not been able to run load. However, Sony in a lab environment has shown a speed of 70 meters per minute to run the robot Aibo (cooperation with the U.S. company Boston Dynamics developed), they increased the Aibo in the spring of each leg, another in every only the feet of the sensor used for feedback also increased topographic information, which is very useful to run control. .

Sony's Doi said: "we are creating a new industrial area, the robot is equivalent to the biology of the Precambrian era. "He thought, as the Cambrian age has produced a wide variety of biological species, robotics will be repeated in the Cambrian era scenarios.



Sony's second generation robot SDR-4X shows a more complex control and richer communication function. SDR-4X integrated real-time Adaptive motion control system enables it to irregular terrain and slopes, in the external pressures also can keep walking attitude, so surfing SDR-4X simulates the movement of the balance on the pad.

Sometime this year, Sony plans to launch a business based on the SDR-4 prototype. Doi said: "The price will not exceed the price of luxury cars." .

Prior to marketing, the relevant security measures is Sony are the main issues tackled. Joint after grinding out a round handle so that the user's finger, the robot is designed to be easy to trip, even if the trip is almost not be corrupted, or even be able to stand up again. Doi said: "these are commercial products, a minimum requirement. ” 。.

Honda's Asimo was developed called the i-WALK intelligent real-time flexible walking technology, its forecast mobile control the robot in real time forecasting next campaign, and is forecast to move the center of gravity. Application of the technology, Asimo can walk to change its slope, and adjusted by changing the smooth stride to change the speed of walking. Hirose, said that only Asimo has such a dynamic ability to walk. .

Through improvements in data processing and software, early Asimo has done no pre-programmed to up and down stairs. Earlier point factory of Asimo in advance depending on the specific steps for width and height data programming. Ministry of approximately 20 Asimo can hire, of which approximately 8 the Department of museums and other companies as a wizard robot and receptionist.

Guard dog robot. .

Tmsuk co., Ltd. is a robotics company, the company intends to cooperate with SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. to promote a guard dog robot, and in the end of this year or next year's promotion of a robot on patrol.

Provided by the NTT Docomo's 3G phone service, weighing about 40 kg robot guard dog can Foma cellular phones and host communications. Foma phones be placed in the mouth guard dog. When the guard dog patrol scanner housing, the owner of the dog in the distance you can see the images seen, heard the dogs hear. The owner can order by telephone to take some action guard dog. .

The Japanese island of Kyushu, local colleges, research institutions and Omron Corporation robot patrol will be approximately .6 million 8. of the prices. This robot patrol to 3 kilometres per hour speed independently conduct patrols. In the building, it can use the elevator and give yourself a charge. If you find that the fire or accident, robot voice and images can be passed to the control center, you can watch robot switch to remote control mode.

"We can achieve the robot's self-govern, but if robots autonomously work and create a Yixie fault, then the product can not be held responsible Zhi Zao Shang, therefore, require a person to action or inaction on the Jiqi Ren decisions." Tmsuk company CEO Takamoto said, "to the current recognition technology, a robot can not distinguish between cats and people open the decision-making delegated to the robot is dangerous.". .

Tmsuk companies already in Japan, Europe and the United States have made use of mobile phone remote control robot franchise. Takamoto believes that guard the village gardens may be a guard dog, one of the best uses of robot.

Companion robot. .

Matsushita Electric Co., Ltd. is committed to research in everyday life live how to respond to the robot's behavior, experimental object is a companion to the thought of as a robot, field tests have been carried out for 5 years.

To make a more friendly robot companions, Panasonic designed it the image of a fat animal 45 cm high robot, an image similar to a wombats, the internal drive from the Celeron 600MHz processor. It does not walk, but you can turn the head and limbs movement. "People familiar with the shape of animals to the robot users often create a feeling of discomfort, so we chose a people do not understand the animal its shape." Matsushita, the living environment of family life development center team leader Koji Kawamoto explained. .

Equipped with voice recognition system for robot helps users communicate with the local rescue Center. Taking into account the age of 70 and 80-year-old age group of users, the operation is simplified to a single on/off and voice instructions. Robot using 2,000 phrases and talking to people. Panasonic company reported in test users feel average approximately 46% of conversations is meaningful.

Kawamoto said: "We are studying whether to accept and live communication between the robot. Field test showed that with a non-life compared to electronic communication devices, people are more willing to talk with a robot. When the robot left, more than half The user still miss it. ". .

Osaka University professors, the next President of the League of RoboCup Minoru Asada said: "Japan will be the first robots and humans live together in society, the Japanese will serve as a proving ground for the robot in the world of service. ” 。.


Japan's Hitachi and Hitachi Home & Life Solution (Hitachi H & L, Headquarters: Tokyo, Minato-ku) in the May 29, 2003 announced the successful development of a home cleaning robot. This is a way to go in the room and the free exercise of self-cleaning robot walking. The specifications on the increased research in efforts to clean the diameter of the robot is only 25cm, the industry's smallest, but also in the clean room, leaving no. Hitachi strive for 2 to 3 years on the market, is expected to sell for 200,000 yen (about RMB 1. .35 Million) or so. .




Walking home in the self-cleaning robot, Japan's TAKARA and Toshiba have separately listed the "house Pakistan (Roomba)" and "Trilobite (Trilobite)". The shape and the same Hitachi cleaning robots are used circular design. Hitachi cleaning robots and other products than the fuselage diameter smaller. .

In addition, the lower portion of the fuselage design a maximum can be automatically put out about "5cm movable vacuum mouth" robot walk to the corner of the room, you can move vacuum port can automatically stretch to corner to clean it.




Household cleaning robot market matures.

Japan's domestic market for household cleaners, about 5.6 million units per year. The home cleaning robot market each year only 1,000 or so in the future will continue to expand. .

2 ~ 3 years later, Hitachi start cleaning robot, it is anticipated that the size of the market "will increase to 50 million Taiwan Taiwan ~ 1" (Hitachi H&L technology development department managers, company directors Ishii kichitaro).


Development focus is still cleaner function. .

Plan to install on a clean robot fuselage, CCD camera to be able to use mobile browsing through home computer clean robot CCD images. Can also be used for remote monitoring.

However, Hitachi is not to focus on the development of these additional functions. Ishii, director of Hitachi H & L said: "In the Sony AIBO entertainment robots advantages of other companies. Hitachi has been developing for nearly 20 years, including commercial cleaning robots including. Technically speaking, the most difficult is how to cleaning robot cleaner and will continue to focus on product development in this. " .

This cleaning robot released specifications are as follows: fuselage size diameter 25cm× height 13cm 4kg again. Walking the fastest as 40cm/sec. Cleaning time is 10 square meters room will take approximately 10 minutes (obstructions envisaged as three). You can use the remote control or the buttons on the fuselage. Able to leap around 1. .5cm..

After cleaning robots sweeping will automatically enter the "charge and waste recycling", in charge here, and the dumping of refuse collected. Recycle Bin to store robot allegedly collected approximately 1 month of garbage. Recycle Bin from the people to throw away garbage. .


Item code: magus.


Producer: googol (Zhen-Hua Xu, Mechanical Engineering and Automation, F0006101 classes). .

Preface:.

。 The rest of the key incorporates VEXTA company of stepper motor and self-made driver module, because of the characteristics of the stepper motor is determined by the pulse signal to determine the angle of the round, as long as it does not lose the step, you can precisely control every step of the way, but because of the limited capacity of the stepper motor, you need to enlarge its moment, given the size of a space robot is very small and precise control, it uses the harmonic reducer, has reached the gearmotor, and increase repeat accuracy to meet these requirements, the robot's shoulders using precision accuracy spur reducers, can't harmonic reducer, but also meet the requirements. The main structure of the robot arm splint with three-dimensional structure, there are around two pieces of plywood as the main support, and through the plates before and after aluminum column connections, forming a three-dimensional hollow structure, the total light, high strength, large interior space, you can add installation of various devices, the electrical installation are used suspension, and all through the couplings and moving parts of the connection, to avoid the direct force of the motor. Body structure and frame structure is adopted splint the form of mashups 上 半 some of the body with plywood, can be Anzhuang motor, second half sub Shenti using hollow frame, Ke Huode more interior space, Congerkeyi install control Xitong of Dicengqudong Dian Lu Ban.Robot's back with a control box that was used to install the control system, adopts the structure, the internal space of imposition, inside a PC, cpld processing Board, a/d module sheet, plate, part of the MCU motor plate, stepper motor current drain fuses, current distribution, total current quick connector, cooling fans. The front of the robot is installed the total power circuit, the system starts the gates and reset switch, switches, and the corresponding LEDs.

Project produced:. .

Purpose is to pass on human-machine for the production of mechanical structures, and find the lowest cost of developing the most reasonable precision high mechanical structure, the concept of modular production inspection and basic behavior through the robot programming, looking for a more rational, more simplified control throughout the production process, inspection and notion of modular preparing feasibility and reasonability of both its drawbacks, the observation of the robot in the human environment adaptability and flexibility, so as to seek out the future development of the concept of making the robot, to enable them to better integrate into our environment, instead of a human to complete some services, similar to the service, entertainment, dangerous Affairs, as well as military applications . .

Variation of voxel design method.

CAD systems of individual parts of the design. .


In relation to the design of individual parts, this article introduces a voxel constructor method (CSG Method) concept, as its main steps.

The product shape is decomposed by basic elements to form a CSG tree. . Input CSG tree at the bottom of the basic elements. . Turn to the left subtree and right subtree according to their root operator to complete the set of operation and stored in the node. . Into one level, to continue operations until the CSG tree root. .




Installation of functional connectivity features to reduce structural weight. .

This poses to the next segment, finalize the CSG tree out of the entire part of the plan, and then into the CAD system to a more specific design.


Figure 1: The main component parts of the human arm. .

CAD design and production of the system as a whole.

The overall design. .




Multi-DOF arm of the basic functions. .


First of all, to analyze the robot the necessary freedom to remove redundancy, too many invalid degrees will increase the complexity of the end of the load capacity reduction kg and unnecessary control difficulty, but also can not be less than the requisite degrees, which causes the robot is unable to meet their working space. 。.


Designed to imitate human body diagram of freedom manipulator arms. .

CAD system design of specific institutions.

In the framework of the overall structure largely finished, they should be designed for specific body parts and the power source of the selection and installation of power source we have chosen to servo motors and stepper motors, servo motors with encoder output, can form a closed loop control, stepper motor with self-cord function, within its torque, can rotate without accurate feedback every step of subtraction installations reducer, it has a large reduction ratio, small size, high precision. .

. .

We are a part of the design process.




Use Pro / E to do part design. .

Production, simple writing, to the point of view.

Design articles:. .


Electronic parts:.


Pre-engineering major inspection robot and motor work, so control of the use of open-loop control, direct from the PC signal after receiving signals for each module action, without feedback. Post-project ready to join the optical encoder or potentiometer, after A / D conversion, signal input computer, another computer to determine and address, then the output signal corresponding control, and is prepared with suitable sensors, so that the external environment perceived to constitute a closed-loop control of the whole system. .

Reality:.


The current control system. .


System control is controlled by the method.


Functional modular design. .





Control system. .

Single-chip system adopts aduc812 as the core.


Integrated ISP technology. . .

Direct simulation of on-chip debugging features.




Port expansion, analog bus architecture.


ISP technology to facilitate program debugging. .


Both of the data collection capabilities and parallel processing capability.





Circuit boards (click to enlarge).




Pour the water.


Close down the Department of sailors. .


Handling of dangerous goods.


Tighten screws. .


Artificial intelligence (AI) is a challenging science, that person must understand the computer knowledge, psychology and philosophy. Artificial intelligence is to include a very wide range of science, it is composed by different areas, such as machine learning, computer vision, and so on, generally, the artificial intelligence of the computer to the machine to be able to think like a human. This is not an easy task. 。.


In the definition of wisdom, Turing made a contribution to British scientists, if a machine can be called the Turing test by experiment, that it is wisdom, the essence of the Turing test is that people are not looking at the situation in not distinguish between the behavior of the machine under the person's behavior or when the machine is intelligent.Do not think that this is only to make Turing contribution history is a table, if you are learning the computer know that for your computer, get the Turing Award is equivalent to the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Turing in theory has laid the basis for computer-generated, had it not been for his outstanding contribution to the world is simply not possible with this thing, let alone what network.

Appear before the early Zai computer scientists had hoped Nenggouzhizao the Keneng Analog Ren Lei De thinking machines Le, in this regard, I want to talk about another outstanding mathematicians, philosophers, boolean, through the mathematics of the human way of thinking Jingque De portrait, he was and other distinguished scientists, laid the intellectual structure and method of thinking machines, today's computer based on the use of logic is that he founded. .


I think any studied computer on Boolean will not strange, what we have learned of Boolean algebra is it open. 。 Artificial intelligence has always been the frontier of science in computer science, computer programming languages and other computer software because of advances in artificial intelligence and to exist.




。.


In the world of artificial intelligence research started very early, but the artificial intelligence truly begin to run from the birth of the computer, then humanity can achieve a machine of human intelligence. AI that English word, first in 1956, proposed a meeting, after that, so a number of scientific efforts to develop it. Advances in artificial intelligence is not as fast as we expected, because the basic theory of artificial intelligence is not complete, we can not explain the nature of the brain Why can we think of this thinking comes from what to think about why such produce a series of problems.But after decades of development, artificial intelligence is famous for its tremendous power to affect people's lives.


Let us follow the developments in artificial intelligence review the development of the computer, in 1941 by the United States and Germany to any Gongtong development of the first computer was invented Le, then on the human Cunchu and process information Fangfakaishi revolutionary change. The first computer of the size Ke is not good, it is more fat, still relatively squeamish, need to work in air-conditioned room li, if you want what it Chuli Shi Qing, need Dajia to 线路 reconnection time, this is not an effort Sheng a little of the tens of thousands of lines to re-solder what I think the programmers have been living in a paradise. .

Finally, in 1949 the invention can be stored program computer, this program finally can be welded, much better. Because programming is becoming very simple computer finally led to the development of the theory of the generation of artificial intelligence theory. People managed to find a store information and automatic processing of information.

While it seems that the new machine has been able to achieve part of the human mind, but until the 50's people only then human intelligence and linked the new machine. We note that the old man next to the belly, and his theory of feedback so that he made a final conclusion, the results of all human intelligence is a feedback of the results, the results through continuous feedback to the body caused by action, and then produced a smart.


In 1955, when Shannon was developed together with The Logic Theorist program, which is a procedure using tree structure, the program runs, it searches in the tree to find the possible answers to the nearest tree branch explore, to get the right answer. This program is the history of artificial intelligence can be said to have an important position, it academically and socially enormous impact, so that the approach we are thinking a lot or from the 50's program. .

In 1956, as in the field of artificial intelligence, another famous scientist of a pastiche of Greek (just right of the individual) convened a meeting to discuss the future direction of development of artificial intelligence. Since then, the name of artificial intelligence, which was formally established in the history of artificial intelligence is not a huge success, but this meeting to the artificial intelligence of the founder of exchange opportunities and for the future development of the artificial intelligence played a hugely. Thereafter, the workers began to focus on intelligent changes to establish practical able to solve the problem of the system and require a system with Adaptive learning capacity. In 1957, Shannon and others, has developed a program called General Problem Solver (GPS), its theory of Wiener's feedback on an extension, and can solve some of the more common problem. Other scientists working to develop systems to the right by the scientist made a significant contribution, he created the table dealing with language LISP, until now many artificial intelligence programs are still using this language, it almost became the Artificial Intelligence synonymous, today, LISP still in development. .


In 1963, MIT was the u.s. Government and Department of Defense's support for research in artificial intelligence, the United States Government are not for anything else but to keep the cold war and the Soviet Union's balanced, though this is intended to gunpowder with points, but it turned out that AI has developed greatly. Subsequent development of many programs, the Massachusetts Institute of technology has developed SHRDLU. This major development in the 60's, STUDENT system can solve algebra problems, and the SIR system is beginning to understand simple English sentences, SIR, has led to the emergence of new disciplines: natural language processing. Appeared in the 70's expert system into a huge progress, the first time he let people know computers can replace human experts in some of the work, because the performance improvement of computer hardware, artificial intelligence can be carried out a series of important activities, such as statistical analysis data, participation in medical diagnosis, etc., as an important aspect of life started to change human life.In theory, the 1970s was also a period of great development, computer began to simple thoughts and vision, and the plus in the 1970s, another artificial intelligence language Prolog language, and LISP with artificial intelligence workers almost indispensable tools. Do not think that artificial intelligence is far away from us, it has already entered our lives, fuzzy control, decision support, and so on in the shadow of artificial intelligence. Let the computer to replace this machine simple human intellectual activity, to the emancipation of mankind is more useful for other work, this is the purpose of artificial intelligence, but I think the endless pursuit of scientific truth, the ultimate driving force for it. .

Related links:.

CMU Common Lisp (CMUCL). .

CLISP - an ANSI Common Lisp。.

Prolog Programming A First Course. .


Overview。.

It is well known that Intel leads the industry in wireless sensor network research. . What may not be quite as well known is Intel's recent work in mobile robotics. .In particular, Intel is helping researchers create small, sophisticated mobile robots that can act as gateways into wireless sensor networks。.

This is a new venture that is focused on intelligent mobile robots - robots that are used in flexible environments, not automated toolsets in fixed locations. .For example, Intel-based mobile robots will be used at the James Reserve by the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) to map terrain and monitor habitats。. Intel silicon for robotics applications is also being used by researchers, such as professor Tucker Balch at the Georgia Institute of Technology. .Professor Balch is exploring how robots can organize and perform like social insects, such as bees and ants。. Future projects may include the possibility of building a ground-based Robonaut, as well as the brains of the 2009 Mars Rover. .

Intel's focus is not on the mechanical aspects of robots -- the wheels, motors, grasping arms or physical layout。. Instead, this venture is focused on the silicon and software that give a robot its capabilities and intelligence. .Intel's role is to assist researchers in putting powerful, sophisticated intelligence into small, standardized packages for mobile robotics。. With wireless technologies now practical and available, this is a novel area for research and investigation. .

To assist researchers, Intel is offering inexpensive, standards-based hardware, an open-source operating system, and drivers for use in robotics environments。. The open-source package lets researchers take advantage of leading-edge Intel XScale microprocessors and Intel Centrino mobile technology, while reducing the overall costs of developing robotics systems

What is a robot?. .

Robotics is not a new field。. It has been around for decades。. In fact, most people have robots in their own home, even if they don't recognize the robots as such。. For example, a dishwasher automatically washes and dries your dishes, then grinds up the rinsed-off food so the organic matter doesn't clog your drains. .One of the better known home-oriented robots is iRobot's smart vacuum cleaner, called the Roomba, which has already won the Good Housekeeping Award for efficiency and ease of use. .

More sophisticated robots are used in manufacturing plants and warehouses。. Car makers use automated machines to position car frames, bolt pieces together, and even do welds and priming。. In wafer communications, test systems position themselves along grids, take measurements, and then correlate the data into graphs. .Robot-assisted heart microsurgery is now performed routinely in the U。.S。.

To some extent, we have become so used to robots that we no longer pay attention to the automated machines. . We look only at the tasks they complete, and we think of them simply as tools. .It is easy to think this way: most of today's robots are stationary tools in fixed locations, like a fruit sorter in a cannery, or an alarm sensor that triggers a call to security。.

Robots growing in sophistication. .

Although we are surrounded by robots that we think of as automated tools, there are some sophisticated robots already in use (photo below)。. Intelligence for these robots is handled via an embedded microcontroller that manages internal systems, and by a laptop that is attached to the robot。. Humans control the robot through wireless communications. . In this way, humans can tell the robot to change directions, shift a camera angle, take measurements, grasp objects, and so on. .For example, mobile robots can let security personnel stay in a central office and still check out unsupervised areas in a warehouse or other remote site。.


Carnegie Mellon University's TagBots use Intel boards. .

With advances in microchip design, nanotech sciences, software architecture, and mini-power cells, robot systems can be more than just another pair of eyes。. They are already being tested and used in a variety of applications. . They can traverse different, even dangerous environments and perform complex tasks on their own. .For example, mil-spec iRobot Packbots have been used in Afghanistan to detect and map the locations and contents of caves。. Another iRobot rover was used in the historic exploration of both the southern and northern shafts that led to the Queen's Chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza (Egypt). .The rover was able to illuminate areas beyond the blocking stones in the shafts, which had last been viewed by human eyes some 4,500 years ago。.

Robot mobility issues. .

Regardless of a robot's design or tasks, there are still three main issues with its mobility: Localization: How does a robot know where it is in its environment? 。.


Mapping: How does the robot know the details of its environment?. .


Navigation: How does a robot traverse its environment?。.

Intel works closely with researchers to identify novel ways for a robot to perform its mobility tasks. .Intel is particularly interested in machine-vision libraries that can be used to perform localization and mapping based on monocular- or stereo-vision systems。. For example, right now, most robots navigate by using infrared or radio waves to avoid objects in their paths. .However, Intel software researchers recently developed several libraries that are very applicable to robotics systems。. Intel's computer vision library is already used extensively by vision researchers. .

Intel has also released a test version of a technical library for building Bayesian networks to support machine-learning activities。. Bayesian networks are a form of probability-based artificial intelligence. . Such a network would let a robot navigate by matching sensor data to a map stored in its memory. .

Gateways into sensor networks。.

Two technologies in particular seem to be moving toward an interesting convergence: mobile robotics and wireless sensor networks. .The two main questions here are: Can a mobile robot act as a gateway into a wireless sensor network? 。.


Can sensor networks take advantage of a robot's mobility and intelligence?. .

One major issue with a mobile robot acting as a gateway is the communication between the robot and the sensor network。. Sensor networks typically communicate using 900 MHz radio waves。. Mobile robots use laptops that communicate via 802. .11, In the 2. .4 - To 2. .483-GHz range. . Intel hopes to prove that a sensor net can be equipped with 802. .11 capabilities to bridge the gap between robotics and wireless networks。.

Other motes in the network then use each other as links to reach the 802。.11-equipped hubs。. The hubs forward the data packets to the main 802。.11-capable gateway, which is usually a laptop。. Using some motes as hubs cuts down on the number of hops any one data packet has to make to reach the main gateway. . It also reduces power consumption across the sensor net. .

Intel believes that one of the most interesting technology convergences will be in designing mobile robots that can act as gateways into the wireless sensor networks。. For example, Intel recently installed small sensors in a vineyard in Oregon to monitor microclimates. .The sensors measured temperature, humidity, and other factors to monitor the growing cycle of the grapes, then transmitted the data from sensor to sensor until the data reached a gateway。. There, the data was interpreted and used to help prevent frostbite, mold, and other agricultural problems. .

The agricultural example shows just how a sensor network could take advantage of a mobile robot's capabilities。. Over time, sensors need to be recalibrated, just like any other measuring equipment。. For example, a robot could periodically collect data along the network, determine which sensors are out of tolerance, move to the appropriate location, and recalibrate each out-of-tolerance device。.

To look into using mobile robots as gateways to such wireless sensor networks, Intel is bringing in a Ph. . D. .candidate from the University of Southern California, under the guidance of professor Gaurav Sukhatme。. This person will work with Intel on integrating wireless sensor networks into robotics research for localization techniques. .This type of collaboration is just one example of how Intel is promoting the convergence of microelectronics and robotics。.

Numerous collaborations on robotics projects. .

Overall, Intel is working with approximately 20 robotics research groups, including Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), University of Southern California (USC), University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, and Georgia Tech . . Intel is also in discussions with universities and robotics manufacturers, such as Sony, about robotic dogs, and Honda and Samsung on using Intel silicon to build robotic humanoids. .Intel is also in discussion with NASA and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) on several major projects。.

Other pilot projects include professor Sebastian Thrun's CMU research into an aerial mapping helicopter (photo below), which is currently about 4 feet in length and which has been demonstrated in certain DARPA programs。. Acroname is also using Intel's open-source robotics package in their latest commercial robot, called Garcia (see photo at beginning)。.


Sebastian Thrun's aerial mapping helicopter. .


In other collaborations, professor Balch of Georgia Tech is using Intel technology to develop hundreds of mobile robots in order to model the swarm behavior of insects。. Professor Vijay Kumar is using Intel's XScale boards (photo below) and open-source software for off-road robot investigations. .Professor Illah Nourbakhsh is teaching mobile robot programming using new robotics systems with Intel XScale boards and the Linux operating system。.


Intel boards are being used in a number of robotics projects. .

Robotics task force。.

The thrust of Intel's robotics effort is to reduce the cost and engineering required to build small, powerful, sophisticated robots. . This thrust, however, requires standards and protocols. .Right now, robotics standards and protocols are in their infancy。. With technology convergence becoming increasingly important in Intel's areas of interest, Intel is leading industry efforts for the Robotics Engineering Task Force (RETF). .

The RETF is modeled after the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)。. Currently, government representatives include researchers from NASA, DARPA, and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)。. All told, approximately 35 government and university researchers are already participating in the RETF. .

A working draft of the first framework document is now being reviewed for comments. .

The task force has also begun work on standards for bridging networks, on protocols, and on application programming interfaces (APIs)。. Current issues being discussed include intellectual property rights and copyright. . The task force hopes to begin work on full specifications as soon as the framework document is approved. .The task force expects to publish its work as open-source code when the work is complete, something it hopes to finish in about two years。.



11 wireless networking with built-in support for wireless sensor networks。. The designs give researchers an intermediate scale between the embedded microprocessors currently used in internal robotics and the large-scale laptops used for mobile intelligence. .

The robotics package also includes the open-source Linux 2。.4。.19 operating system, as well as a multitude of open-source drivers。. Drivers include vision-system drivers for sensing infrared, drivers for ultrasonic devices that measure the distance from a robot to objects in the robot's environment, and so on. .The software platform also supports Java applications, and integrates USC's Player device server for robotics systems。.

With internal robot systems standardized, researchers and developers will not have to redesign the wheel for each robot's brain。. Instead, developers can spend more time on mobility, visual recognition systems, and the software for artificial intelligence (AI). .

Summary。.

Having achieved a reputation for leading-edge work in wireless sensor networks, Intel is starting a new venture into wireless, mobile robotics technology. .Intel hopes that the two technologies -- mobile robotics and wireless networks -- can be combined efficiently in, for example, ubiquitous computing environments。. In the Intel vision, mobile robots act as gateways into wireless sensor networks, such as into the "Smart Dust" networks of wireless motes. .

Intel's role in this venture is to assist robotics researchers by providing standardized silicon, an open-source operating system, and a multitude of open-source software drivers for robotics applications . . The robotics development package includes silicon for the Intel XScale microprocessor or Intel Centrino mobile technology, the Linux 2. .4. .19 operating system, and a plethora of robotics software drivers。.

Intel has also released a test version of a technical library for building Bayesian networks, which will help advance the ability of robots to navigate their environments. .Pilot systems based on Intel's open-source packages are already being deployed in a variety of flexible environments in agricultural, security, and military applications。.

With standardized low-cost and open-source building blocks, developers won't have to spend as much time building the brains of their robots. .Developers of embedded systems or wireless sensor networks will find that the open-source robotics package makes it much easier to design tomorrow's robotics systems today。.

Note. .

Subsequent to initially publishing this article, LinuxDevices。.com requested further details regarding the XScale/Linux based hardware/software robotics platform that Intel has developed。.


"We are currently engaged with a limited number of researchers at CMU, USC, Stanford, Georgia Tech, etc。. to develop a common platform based on XScale and Linux。. We have deployed over 100 XScale boards to a variety of robotics researchers. . The Linux port is working reasonably well with deployments to about 15 researchers. . "..


"The boards are not yet available from a third party but we have plans to enable a third party shortly。. The boards are identical to those used in our wireless sensor network gateway where we are collaborating with Crossbow, Inc. . In the development of new systems (info). .We are also working with Acroname on the development of robots using these XScale boards (info)。."。.


"The Linux source code is available at Carnegie Mellon University (here) and Portland State University (here)).. We have taken the standard 2. .4..19 release for ARM and applied the XScale PXA250 patches plus one for the Stayton board。."。.


"We are also engaged in creating specifications for reusable, interoperable building blocks for mobile robots.. More information is available at the Robotics Engineering Task Force website..". .

References。.


The site includes articles from Pervasive Computing magazine, related topics, information about pilot projects, and more。.





Information about the Robotics Engineering Task Force can be found at the RETF Web site。.


Bio of author: Jim Butler is a principal investigator for Intel Research and the Emerging Platforms Lab, part of the Corporate Technology Group. .He has been with Intel 11 years, and has worked on a variety of high-profile, leading-edge projects。. His work on the Indeo video codec was some of the first video compression work developed by Intel . . Another of Jim's projects, CNN @ Work, was the first commercial application for multicast video-over-IP. .

Prior to Intel, Butler developed accelerator boards and software tools at Tektronix, Inc. . - Tools that were used by Industrial Light & Magic for the special effects in "Terminator 2". .He also worked for Integrated Systems, Inc。. , Where he tested module prototypes for the Marshall Space Flight Center, performed modeling for the Boeing Space Station program, and also worked in the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor program. .

From 1997 to 1999, Butler was one of the four co-founders of the Pacific Convergence Corporation. .Along with his co-founders, Butler established a joint venture between Intel and the Pacific Century Group to address broadband Internet delivery using satellite and cable redistribution in China。. He has also been an Intel Board Observer for Skila, Inc. . Along with several other engineers, Butler was a recipient of the Intel Achievement Award in 2000. .In January, he hosted the second Intel Robotics Workshop and Forum, 2003, which drew almost 300 participants。. Butler holds a patent for automated media capturing system technology。. He earned his B。 . S. . C. . E. . And his M. . S. . E. . E. . From the University of Illinois. . Butler is a member of both IEEE and AAAI. .


Sony Tsugio Makimoto business consultant in 2002 at the Institute of electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) international electronic devices meeting (IEDM) delivered a keynote speech, such as AIBO and SDR-4X such entertainment robot called semiconductor technology and its new impetus to the development of the market.

Sony's Corporate Advisory Tsugio Makimoto 2002 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) gave a keynote speech to as AIBO and SDR-4X robot so called entertainment and semiconductor technology new market to develop. .

This meeting in 2002, from 9 to 11 December was held in San Francisco.

Makimoto said that he thought, both personal computers and digital home appliances, the robots can play a role in development advances in semiconductor technology, with advances in semiconductor technology, the technology also will Bian's Yuelai Yue Duo Yanghua. .

Makimoto also said that he looked forward to 2040, implantable robots semiconductor processing capacity will be achieved significant progress, and human beings have the same intelligent robots.

He also mentioned that the United States Carnegie Mellon University's Hans Moravec's prediction that when the robot's processing capacity will reach 100 million MIPS (millions of instructions per second) speed. .

SDR-4X current handling capability is 2000 MIPS or higher, and is equipped with several microprocessors and other equipment, in accordance with the current performance, must be completed within 40 5 times over a huge leap forward.

Makimoto that if the robot according to the speed of development, or even 2050, the robot can beat human soccer champions. .

According to Makimoto said that, in order to meet the needs of the future development of the semiconductor technology will be developed in order to monitor a variety of sensors, vision, hearing, balance, as well as artificial muscles, etc..

He also pointed out that, SDR-X4 with Ball Semiconductor manufacturing spherical accelerator, and has equipped with micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, a variety of sensors. .

In addition Makimoto outlines the development of artificial muscle technology. His speech was filled with a sense of humor, won the applause.


This walk under the principles of insect arthropods, established walking model, the insect's movement to simplify, to abstract the basic principles of four-legged movement, and create a theoretical model is tested, can achieve forward, backward, turn left, right turn, obstacle avoidance and other actions, for the study of four-legged walking machine or a great help. Bionic quadruped walking robot. .




Abstract: According to the principle of arthropod insects walk, walking to establish the model, simplifying the movement of insects, to abstract the basic principles of four-legged movement, and create a theoretical model is tested, can achieve forward, backward, turn left , turn right, obstacle avoidance and other actions, for the study of four-legged walking machine or a great help. .

Keywords: quadruped, distributed control, MCU.

I. Introduction:. .

Since the invention of mankind, a wide variety of robot robot is on the way into our lives. Modelled on the biological features and the invention of all kinds of robots and more. As a mobile robot platform, walking robot and wheeled robot compared to maximum advantage is walking robot on the requirements of the walking surface is very low, it can span barriers, through the desert, swamp and other special pavement engineering military reconnaissance expedition surveying or human cannot be completed or dangerous work; you can also develop into entertainment robot toys or home service robot. Quadruped walking robot in the whole big machine account for a large proportion, so the bionic quadruped walking robot has very important significance. .

Second, the principle: on foot.

1. . One foot in each leg acts in two states: moving forward and backward walking; for each state in terms of action, divided into two steps: step legs and the legs. This two-step continuous loop, set the period T, step time for the closing leg leg time of 1 / 3, for the entire cycle of 1 / 4, this action is the same for each leg: each adjacent the phase difference between the two lift the leg movements of 1 / 4 cycle, this robot can be drawn from the four-legged walking style between the timing relationship shown in Figure 1:. .


2. four-legged robot to achieve stable coordination of walking, you must ensure that each moment has three legs, while the other one leg to walk. All the mysteries of the walking is that when a leg up, the other three legs are at the ground and back so that the robot to lift the legs take a step forward, one step and then traveled down a step after step by turns, the other leg, robot continually move forward. Various action sequence is as follows (four legs Koop right back, right front, left rear, left front, take a step forward for each leg are credited to the "↑" backward step leg is recorded as "↓").


Forward: right front right rear ↑ → ↑ → ↑ → left and the left anterior ↑;. .


Back: right before and right after ↓ → ↓ → left rear left anterior ↓ ↓ →;.


Left: right front right rear ↑ → ↓ → ↑ → Left Front Left Rear ↓;. .


Right: right before and right after ↓ ↓ → turn left → ↑ → left front after ↑.


The temporal relationship between leg movement shown in Figure 1. .




Third, the control system:. .

Control system uses a distributed control, that is, each leg with a microcontroller to control this leg movements, there is also a central control centre to send control signals legs to coordinate action between the legs. At the same time, the Centre also received from two infrared sensors, identification of signal obstructions in front, to adopt a different walk, reach the purpose of avoiding obstacles. Control system structure is shown in Figure 2: block diagram.


Robots used in various parts of the program are as follows:. .


Battery: 4 .8V 1300mAh Ni-MH...


Processor: ATMEL 89C2051 @ 12MHz × 5. .


Sensor: infrared sensor.


Servo: Futaba S3003 × 8. .

IV. conclusion:.

From the theory, methodology, application areas described bionic quadruped walking robot. Mobile platform as a walk, the robot can achieve forward, backward, turn left, turn right, and to achieve obstacle avoidance capabilities. Its highly scalable, can be attached to arm and other devices to achieve the functions of a variety of needs. But this robot still in the initial stage of development, the theory is still not perfect, stability is also badly need to continue. .


Appendix: the source program.

1. Total Control Center source:. .


# include 。.


# Define uchar unsigned char. .

sbit p10=P1^0;。.


sbit p11 = P1 ^ 1;. .


sbit p12=P1^2;。.


sbit p13 = P1 ^ 3;. .


sbit p30=P3^0;。.


sbit p31 = P3 ^ 1;. .


sbit p32=P3^2;。.


sbit p33 = P3 ^ 3;. .


unsighed int w0,w1,i,j,c,d;。.

delay (int i). .

{int j;。.


for (; j (..


}。.


). .

void main()。.


(For (;;)。 .


{p10=0; delay(3000);。.


p10 = 1; delay (500);. .


p11=0; delay(3000);。.


p11 = 1; delay (1000);. .


p12=0; delay(3000); 。.


p12 = 1; delay (500);. .


p13=0; delay(3000);。.


p13 = 1; delay (1000);. .


}。.


). .

2. each leg on the source program source program: the SCM.


# Include. .


# define uchar unsigned char。.

sbit p10 = P1 ^ 0;. .


sbit p11=P1^1;。.


sbit p12 = P1 ^ 2;. .


sbit p13=P1^3;。.


sbit p14 = P1 ^ 4;. .


sbit p15=P1^5;。.


sbit p16 = P1 ^ 6;. .


sbit p32=P3^2;。.


sbit p33 = P3 ^ 3;. .


unsighed int w0,w1,i,j,c,d;。.

delay (int i). .


{int j;。.


for (; j (..


}。.


). .


void timer0(void) interrupt 1 using 1。.


(P13 =! P13;. .


c=20000-c;。.


TH0 =- (c/256); TL0 =- (c% 256);. .


if(c>500&&c else c=20000-w1;。.


). .


void timer1(void) interrupt 3 usering 3。.


(P14 =! P14;. .


d=20000-d;。.


TH1 =- (d/256); TL1 =- (d% 256);. .


if(d>=500&&d wlse d=20000-w0;。.


). .


void main()。.


(W0 = 1000;. .


w1=1500;。.


p15 = 0;. .


p16=0;。.


PX = 0; PX1 = 0; PT1 = 1; PT0 = 1;. .


TMOD=0x11;。.


TH0 =- 1000/256;. .


TL0=-1000/256;。.


TH1 =- 1000/256;. .


TL1=-1000/256;。.


EA = 1;. .


EX0=1; EX1=1;。.


IT0 = 1; IT1 = 1;. .


ET0=1; ET1=1;。.


TR0 = 1; TR1 = 1;. .


for(;;)。.


(If (p10 == 0) (step forward leg). .


{w0=1750;。.


delay (1000);. .


for(;w1 {w1=w1+1;。.


delay (10);. .


}。.


delay (1000);. .


wo=1500。.


). .


If (p11 == 0) (backward your leg).


(For (; w1> = 1000; i + +). .


{w1=w1-1;。.


delay (30);. .


}。.


). .


If (p12 == 0) (to the back and leg).


(W0 = 1750;. .


delay(1000);。.


for (; w1> = 1000; i + +). .


{w1=w1-1;。.


delay (10);. .


}。.


delay (1000);. .


wo=1500。.


). .


If (p11 == 0) (forward your leg).


(For (; w1 (w1 = w1 +1;..


delay(30);。.


). .


}。.


). .


Industrial equipment exhibition "Hannover industrial fair 2003" 7 April-12 April in Hannover, Germany. Recently, the "hero," "birthday of humanoid robots in Japan caused widespread public concern, and this shows the Biped robot in Germany also caused a sensation. It seems the heat is not a robot Kingdom.

The biped walking robot is on display Technical University of Munich (Technische Universitat Munchen). The robot's body similar to adults, including crossing obstacles and demonstrate a higher level. Walking speed of 2km / h, can be identified through the camera height and distance of obstacles, and decided to go across or around. Demonstration across the barrier height of 8cm, a width of 4cm, height gap is 12. .5 Cm. According to narrator describes the scene, and the obstacles to judge the distance between the error of 3cm. By an external power supply.Even though every one hour demo once, but before each booth was crowded with visitors.


In addition, the University of Paderborn, Germany (Universitat Paderborn) also exhibited a robot can express emotions. Unfortunately, this robot is not popular. .













The protagonist of UML robot competition is by using the Unified Modeling Language UML (Unified Modeling Language) and Lego KD (KD programmable robot) assembled LEGO MindStorms robot "programmable." That is, first use the UML design robot actions, and then in c, C + +, Java and other languages be written as a robot recognized program. Actually is assembled out of LEGO MindStorms robot, then carries on from afar. Participating parties, including individuals, schools, a total of 24 software developers and other groups and individuals. Venue to be gathered from a large number of spectators and participants packed in together. .

In the game, the game within the runway time race walking, as well as constructing construction, design, operation, etc. of freestyle event. In the race, each robot on the black lines depends on the light sensor. However in a real walking, just start, suddenly fell down the runway, accidents constantly.

Beside the track, affixed to participate in classes designed by a team (Class) map with discrete state (State chart) plans and other UML modeling diagram, viewers can watch the game while the action while the actual machines and software design for comparison. .


Science fiction movie "Transformers" plot is about to become reality: UK University scientists work together to make a $ 460 million, creating a true test of an amazing version of "Transformers" — a highly intelligent, can free transform shape of robot! it consists of hundreds of small robot Assembly cannot completely without human control, automatically as needed into almost any shape, medicine, space exploration, search and rescue, etc. It is predicted that the first "Transformers" is expected to come out in 2013, but was also concerned that if these highly intelligent "Transformers" error, will likely will pose a threat to humanity! . .

Hundreds of small machine assembling "Transformers".

It is learned that to build the real version of "Transformers" amazing experiment called "塞姆布里昂 Scheme", is held in the UK this week, "National Science and Engineering Week" on the announcement. It is reported that the project funded by the EU, costing up to 4.6 million pounds, from the University of West of England, including the United Kingdom, York University, 10 universities, including scientists together to create. .

It has been disclosed, in accordance with the concept of "real-life version of" Transformers "will be about hundreds of small groups of robots, each the size of small robots only one piece of sugar 1 cubic inch size and has a wheel or the Horn, the independence movement. Most importantly, these little robots can carry out any of the forms are typically larger, and with smart's "Transformers"!.

Automatically change shape without human control. .

It is reported that the "Transformers" in the body of each small robot has a small computer chip as the "brains", so that they can look like an iPod or iPhone that has intelligence and, through infrared to find other small robot. Once the connection is successful, each small robots will be able to share energy and computing capacity, "Transformers" has the equivalent of a laptop's intelligent, complete a variety of different tasks. Most importantly, the "Transformers" completely without the participation of people, they automatically change shape - they can become a "snake", winds out of the rubble from the building, but also turned into "spider" climb on the walls. .

It is responsible for "Sam Pontbriand plan", a spokesman for the disclosure of the true version of the "Transformers" is extensively, they may be used in medical, space exploration, and capable of performing tasks such as search and rescue.

Once the abnormal self-repair. .

The researchers said, even more amazingly, the "Transformers" robot will hold may manage their own hardware and software, each small robots have their own features, but when necessary, they can also be combined or adjust their own. Moreover, once an exception occurs, they will be able to automatically "self-healing" or "self" reorganization.

Alan Winfield said: "It's like marine animals, like sponges, even if part of the damage, the organism can still survive. In this way, 'Transformers' hardware and software, from theory to self-repair and self- I reorganization. ". .

"Transformers" 2013 hits.

According to the researchers predicted, the world's first "Transformers" is expected to formally developed in 2013, while the 10-15 years, it will truly enter into real life. However, "塞姆布里昂 plan" came to light, they immediately caused a huge panic. Feared, if the "Transformers" test really be successful, the future of these highly intelligent robot, once an error, it might be a threat to humans, or even cause harm, like Dian Ying "Terminator" in the plot of Na Yang , robots rule the world! . .

But Professor Alan, University of the West of England · Winfield thinks is superfluous. "The ' Transformers ' is in fact a complex engineering system, it must undergo a rigorous security assessment can only be applied to real life. As scientists, we must abide by the code of ethics. However, we are unable to determine the ' Transformers ' will be abused in the future, this is a wider social issues. ”。.


Industrial robots by the manipulator (mechanical body), controller, servo drive system and test sensing device structure, is a humanoid operation, automatic control, can be reprogrammed and can be completed in three-dimensional mechanical and electrical integration of various operations automated production equipment. .


I. technical overview.


Industrial robots by the manipulator (mechanical body), controller, servo drive system and test sensing device structure, is a humanoid operation, automatic control, can be reprogrammed and can be completed in three-dimensional mechanical and electrical integration of various operations automated production equipment. Especially suitable for multi-species, variable volume flexible production. Its stability, and improve product quality, increase productivity, improve working conditions and the rapid upgrading of products plays an important role. .


Robot technology is a combination of computer science, Cybernetics, institutional learning, information and sensor technology, artificial intelligence, biometrics and other high-tech, which is very active in contemporary research, growing areas. Robot application is a national industrial automation level of vital signs.


Robot is not in the simple sense, instead of manual labor, but the combination of human expertise and the machinery of a kind of anthropomorphism specialty electronic mechanical devices, both people on the environment of the state's rapid response and ability to judge, another machine can be long time continued to work, high accuracy, resistance to adverse environments, in a sense it is a product of the evolution of the machine, it is industrial and non-industry has been an important production and service equipment, advanced manufacturing technology is indispensable automation equipment. .


2. status and trends at home and abroad.


Developments in the field of foreign robot several trends in recent years are as follows:. .

1. industrial robot performance continues to increase (high speed, high precision, high reliability, easy operation and maintenance), and the stand-alone prices continue to decline, the average price from 91 single 10.3 million in 1997 to $ 6.5.

2. Mechanical structure to the modular, reconfigurable development. Such as joint module servo motor, reducer, Trinity detection system; by the joint module, link module structure of recombinant form robot machine; abroad have asked the city of modular assembly robot products. .

3. industrial robot control system based on a PC in the direction of open controller for Standardization, networked, integrated devices, control cabinet, compact, and modular structure; greatly improves system reliability, easy operability and maintainability.

4. Robot sensors increasingly important role, in addition to the traditional position, velocity, acceleration sensors, the assembly, welding robot application of the visual, force and other sensors, and remote control robots with visual, sound perception, force , tactile and other multi-sensor fusion technologies for environmental modeling and decision-making control; multi-sensor fusion system in the product configuration technology has been matured in the application. .

5. virtual reality in the role of the robot has been developed from the emulation, rehearsal for process control, such as enabling remote control robot operator produces the remote job environment feeling to manipulate robots.

6. Contemporary development of the system features remote control robot not to pursue the whole autonomous system, but is committed to the operator and the robot's human-machine interactive control, or remote control plus a complete system of local self-monitoring of remote operating system, so that intelligent robots out of the laboratory into the practical stage. U.S. launch to Mars "Sojourner" robot is the successful application of this system, the most famous examples. .

7. robot machinery beginning to emerge. From 1994, the United States developed the "virtual machine", the new plant has become one of the focuses of international research, exploration to explore areas of its practical application.

China's industrial robot from the 80's "Plan" science and technology research started, in support of the state, through the "Plan", "Eighth Five-Year" technological breakthroughs, has basic control of the robot manipulator design and manufacturing technology, control system hardware and software design, kinematics and trajectory planning techniques, the production of some key components robot, developed painting, arc welding, spot welding, assembly, handling and other robots; of which more than 130 sets of painting robots more than 20 companies in nearly 30 automatic painting production line (station) on access to large-scale application, arc welding robots have been used in automotive welding factory online.But overall, China's industrial robot technology and application level and there is a certain foreign ratio of distances, such as reliability, lower than foreign products; robot application engineering, application domains, the production system and technology gap with foreign ratio; in application of the scale, we have installed about domestic industrial robot 200 account number of the installed at four.

Our intelligent robots and robot "863" project with the support of a lot of results. One of the most prominent is underwater, 6000 meters underwater results of untethered robot in the world leading level, also developed direct remote control robot, robotic arm and coordinated control, climbing robot, robot machines pipes; in robot vision, haptic, touch, sound sleep, and other basic development on a lot of work, there is a certain development Foundation. However, in multi-sensor information fusion control technology, plus the local autonomous system remote control remote control robots, intelligent assembly robot, the robot mechanical, etc. Development of applications has just started, and the big gap between the advanced level of need based on the original results on research in key areas, the system can be useful for the formation of the system supporting technologies and products with a view to "15" late stand among the world's advanced ranks. .


Third, the 10 th five-year objectives and key research content.


1. Target. .


According to the domestic and international robotic development experience, current status and trends of recent years, combined with the current national economic development of the specific circumstances, robot technology focused Intelligent robot, robotic machinery and its related technologies; development and application to robot-based reorganization of Assembly systems and related technology development and strengthening of multi-sensor data fusion and decision-making, and control technology and application research. Focused on solving our country has developed for many years of teaching-playback type industrial robot industry, key technologies early aging stage, vigorously promote their industrialization, and strive to "15" 末期 achieve spraying, welding, assembly and other industrial robots. .

2. major research content.

(1) teaching-playback type industrial robot industrial technology. .


① articulated, side top di, di, gantry spraying robot product standardization, generic, modular and series design.


② Flexible profile spraying robot development: Flexible profile composite body development, profiling axis servo path planning studies, control system development, machine safety explosion-proof, protection technology development, high-speed jet Cup spraying process. .


③ welding robot (arc welding and spot welding robot as load different a series of robotic arc welding, and doubles as a spot welding, handling, Assembly, cutting jobs) product standardization, generic, modular and series design.


④ arc welding robot with a laser seam tracking vision device development: the choice of laser transmitter, CCD imaging system, visual image processing, visual tracking and coordinated control of robots. .


⑤ welding robot off-line teaching programming and Workstation systems simulation.


⑥ the electronics industry with a standardized assembly robot products, universal, modular, serial design. .


⑦ mass production robots required dedicated manufacturing, assembling, testing equipment and tools for research and development.

(2) the development of intelligent robots. .


① remote and local autonomous composition system and control strategies.


Including modeling - remote control robot model, human behavior model, the control of dynamic modeling, graphical modeling and simulation, virtual tools and virtual sensor modeling; to man the main man-machine shared planning and control; local self-control; multi-sensor Fusion; bidirectional reaction force control; Knowledge Base of learning and reasoning; human-computer interaction advanced control technologies; virtual reality (VR) control and control of the relationship between the real world; monitoring of the system. .


② Intelligent mobile robot navigation and positioning technology.


Including navigation and positioning system structure; in the structure of the environment or non-structural environment, navigation and positioning method; sensing system, sensors and information processing systems pose; environment model based on the sensor data to establish the method; fuzzy logic reasoning method is used navigation of mobile robots. .


③ for remote control robot's virtual reality system.


Including human-computer interaction pattern generation and program design; remote control robot (carrier and manipulator) geometric modeling of dynamic graphics; remote control graphical modeling environment; remote robot operation and data acquisition; virtual sensors and virtual sensors based on two-way power response, feedback control; task-oriented virtual tool; remote control based on virtual reality theory and methods; based VR model operation and real-world operation switch, compatibility and interchangeability; VR control system. .


④ HCI environment modeling system.


Including CAD modeling in human-computer interaction technology; knowledge model of the workpiece during the anti-show interactive technology; robot and the environment layout and functional verification in the interactive technology; sensor data processing in the interactive technology; robot calibration, motion Studies modeling, dynamics modeling of interactive technology. .


⑤ based on the computer screen of remote control technology.


Including three-dimensional visual modeling; model computer display; remote control robot model; man-machine interface; network communication. .

(3) research and development of robotic machinery.


① Parallel Machine Tool (VMT) and robotic machining center (RMC) research and development. .


Including the VMT and RMC intelligent structure implementation technology; VMT and RMC key transmission technology; VMT and RMC machining, assembling, placing, glue, detection technologies; VMT and RMC monitor detection technology development; VMT and MRC intelligent open-CMC control system development, system software and application software development; intelligence agencies, material Mechatronics; job status variable intelligent sensing technologies; mechanical and electrical integration, versatile and flexible job Terminal; generic intelligent open CNC control hardware and software systems; parallel kinematics and dynamics theory; theory of intelligent control RMC; VMT and RMC typical application engineering development . .


② robotized unattended and adaptive multiple-machine remote control operation for large bulk handling equipment.


Including bulk material handling system monitoring and remote operation and configuration of sensor fusion technology; smart sensor fieldbus technology; robot motion planning in the same amount stacker, independent operation of the application; WAN-based remote real-time communications; with monitoring and management functions of fault diagnosis system. .

(4) to robot-based reorganization of assembling system.


① open modular assembly robot. .


Including the common elements of extraction; private parts standardization; CAD design Assembly robot module; generic mainstream computer constructed controller; man-machine interface; network functionality.


② design for robotic assembly. .


Including digital Assembly and CAD integration technologies; products robotic assembly planning generation technologies; products assemblability evaluation.


③ robot flexible assembly system design. .


Which cell technology: feeding system, intelligent design, the Effector for fast execution, logistics, transport, control and communications; integrated technologies: the flexible assembly line simulation software, management system.


④ reconfigurable robot flexible assembly system design. .


Task-based and environmental dynamic reconfigurable robot flexible assembly systems theory; system based on autonomous body (Agent) of a distributed control technology and system units between collaborative planning.


⑤ assembly force sensing, visual technology. .


Including high-precision, high integrated six-axis force sensor technology; visual identity and positioning technique.


⑥ Intelligent Assembly and its control strategy. .


Including assembled State real-time detection and monitoring; Assembly sequence and the path to smart planning and control techniques.

(5) multi-sensor data fusion technology and configuration. .


① Robot sensor configuration and integration of technology in the cement production process control and automatic control of sewage treatment system.


Including process-oriented multi-sensor integration and configuration technology; smart sensor fieldbus technology; for the technological requirements of the new sensor development. .


② Mechatronics smart sensors.


Including those with perception, voluntary movement, from the clean-up (self-tuning, adaptive) mechatronic sensor; for the technological requirements of the motion mechanism design, implementation, testing and clean-up of voluntary movement; adjustment control system; robot mechanism and control technology in sensor design. .


Abstract: presentation of the three components of the ultrasonic measurement system, operation and error analysis. Take advantage of this system and its design method can be used as agricultural robot-assisted vision systems.

Robots can replace manual work as an intelligent machine, with a wide range of applications. The key technology depends on the exact design of robot vision system or not. Ultrasonic sensor with its low price, easy to implement the advantages of hardware, is widely used as distance sensors, to achieve localization and environment modeling. The more acoustic ranging system as visual aids and other visual systems (such as CCD image sensor) with the use of the visual function can be realized. .


Ultrasonic distance measurement principle is very simple, generally use transit time method: D = CT/2, where d is a robot and depending on the distance between the measuring object, C-sound wave in medium speed (C = 331. .4 multiplied by root is sign (1 + t/273) m/s, and t is a Celsius), and T returns for transmitting to the interval of time. This ultrasonic distance measuring system consists of 3 on ultrasonic transducer, a smart move cars, three locations. The system uses a single three-way 89C51 ultrasonic signal loop collection, and data to be sent to the data buffer storage [1, 2]. PC using PC-586. When the host computer needs data, the down-bit machine to issue applications, lower computer the way up through the break-bit machine to send data. Host computer and lower computer through the RS-232 serial port connected. .

1 system hardware design.

In order to measure distance in the same time determine the general shape of the object should be designed multi-sensor measuring system. After analysis, the frequency of about 40kHz ultrasonic transmission efficiency in the air the best; the same time, in order to facilitate the processing, launch into a 40kHz ultrasonic filter is modulated about a certain interval of the modulated pulse signal. Block diagram of the measuring system shown in Figure 1. The figure shows, by the ultrasonic ranging system to send, receive, time measurement, microprocessor control and temperature measurement of five parts. .

1. send .1 ultrasonic.


This includes the generation of ultrasonic signals, multiple choice and other aspects transducer. .

Ultrasonic send pulses as shown in Figure 2. 40kHz ultrasonic pulse signal sent by the SCM 89C51 P1. .0 estuary, its pulse width and pulse interval are software controlled. Pulse width of approximately 125 μ s ~ 200 μ s, i.e. in a pulse of 5 ~ 8 40kHz square wave. Pulse send interval depends on the requirements for measuring the maximum distance and number of measuring channels. This system has three road distance measuring channel, using the time-of-work, press the upper, middle and lower order cycle ranging. If the effective distance within the range of measured object, then sent in the post way before the ultrasound beam should be received before the reflected wave with the way fat, otherwise no way that the measured object before. Therefore, the effective distance range can be estimated by the shortest pulse transmission time interval. For example: the maximum distance range is 5m, the pulse interval time t = 2s / v = 2 × 5 / 340 ≈ 30ms, the actual shall be taken as t ≥ 30ms. .

Send multi-channel ultrasonic pulse after the selector switch CD4052 sequential sent separately to the upper, middle and lower triple send transducer. Using buffers CD4050 is considered its two doors to drive all the way to send transducer to launch drive capability.

1. .2 Ultrasound receiver. .

This section consists of receivers, multiple selection switch, comparison and control, etc. Because of the distance, the acoustic echo is weak, and thus converts the signal amplitude is smaller, as this will signal amplification around 60 million times. There are three levels of zoom in mining: the first two levels of magnification 100 times, and adopt high-speed precision amplifier LM318,.


The bandwidth of 15MHz, the magnification of 100 times, will fully meet the requirements; III using LF353 op amp bandwidth of 4MHz, for 62 times magnification, can fully satisfy the condition [3,6]. AC signal amplified by the optical isolation into the comparator, the comparator is the role of the AC signal shaping a square wave output signal, the rising edge of this square wave signal to D flip-flop triggered interrupt to the CPU for hair. In the interrupt service routine to read the time counter counts, combined with the speed of the temperature conversion from launch to the receiver calculates the distance.Figure 3 shows the way with ultrasonic receiver circuit schematics (omit multiple selection switch).

1. .3 Time measurement. .

More than wave from launch to receive the determination of the amount of time is determined by the internal counter T1 microprocessor. In the debugging process of sending and receiving some part of crosstalk is due directly to the transducer, the distance between, some of the sound waves is not used directly to receive the diffraction of the transducer. From launch until the "false echo" end [5] this period of time, through the control triggers (74LS74) cannot be triggered, and thus will not interrupt request, the sender can effectively avoid interference, but also to form the so-called "blind spot". This system of blind spot about 20cm around.

1. .4 Microcomputer control section. .

By simgle select open on to decide on three channels at the time of order. CD4052 x side choose to send the channel, select the receive channel Y side by 89C51 P1. .1 and .2 P1. issued in order to receive channel selection signal CD4052 a, b-to send and receive the channel can be received with a one-to-one correspondence.


Due to the inherent wide ambient temperature and the ultrasonic beam angle and other factors, ultrasonic sensors measure the value and the actual value of the total number of errors. The ultrasonic ranging system using least squares curve fitting the measurement data were fitted to accuracy of ± 4cm. .


2 system software design.

2. .1 Ultrasonic data acquisition and processing software. .

This system software consists of two parts: the main program and the interrupt service program. The main program to complete the system initialization, choose a road sign, control purpose of transmitting and receiving ultrasonic, etc. The main program the flowchart shown in Figure 4.

T0 interrupt service program, including internal and external interrupts INT0,. .


INT1 interrupt service program. T0 to 30ms interrupted once, its task is to produce every 30ms 5 ~ 8 40kHz square wave as an ultrasonic pulse and sequential to the three channels, namely, the result shown in Figure 2 pulse ultrasonic emission, Figure 2 also provides a channel of timing diagrams. T0 the interrupt service program flow diagram as shown in Figure 5. INT0 interrupt routines to read A/D conversion results, and the corresponding data value is converted to the ambient temperature values; INT1 stop T0, T1 T1 count, according to the contents of the calculation time T, and a final calculation of the distance. First calculate the ultrasonic wave velocity: C = 331. .4 × (root No. 1 + t/273), and then calculating the distance: D = CT / 2, and results into the buffer to prepare for communication. T1 work in mode 2, and designed to gated mode. .


2. .2 serial communication program.

In order not to affect the drop-down machine to complete other tasks, the system is under way bit machine to break up slave sending ranging data, the distance to open the main program in the serial port interrupt. Into the interrupt procedure, still use the query method to send data. .

PC (PC-586) to a subprogram of the receiving program. If the system needs a new distance measuring values, a subprogram call reception. Receive subroutine diagram shown in Figure 6. Receive a subprogram receives data, determine whether data transmission are wrong, if there is a mistake on the down-machine "01" command, the next bit computer receiving this command, the table; if the transfer process without errors, send to the slave "00" command, the slave will continue to send the next data.

3 Error Analysis. .

This system is the maximum distance measuring error about the 8cm blindspot range as 20cm.


Ranging errors are from the following:. .

(1) ultrasonic beam of the probe target; the angle of incidence.

(2) ultrasonic echo sound intensity and sensed distances are directly related, so the actual measurement, not necessarily the first echo of the zero-crossing trigger;. .

(3) ultrasonic propagation velocity on location. Stable and accurate ultrasonic propagation speed is essential to ensure measurement accuracy, wave propagation speed depends on the characteristics of the transmission medium. Transmission medium temperature, pressure and density of sound velocity will produce direct effect. Therefore need to be amended on the speed of sound. For location, causing velocity changes mainly medium temperature changes. This article uses the sound velocity presetting and medium temperature measurement method on the speed of sound, can effectively eliminate temperature change on accuracy.

Many factors affect the measurement error, but also on-site environmental interference, time-based pulse frequency. .

This system is simple, easy to implement, the range is relatively large distance measurement, measurement errors can control ± 4cm. Ultrasonic distance measuring system sends data up-and down-machine data acquisition are independent of each other, at the same time, to ensure that the location data is real-time.


Brief H-Bridge Theory of Operation. .

April 1998, Written by Jim Brown September 2002, page format revised, links updated by Bob Jordan。.

What's all this talk about H-Bridges? How do they work? Well let's see. .

How do we make a motor turn? You take a battery; hook the positive side to one side of your DC motor。. Then you connect the negative side of the battery to the other motor lead。. The motor spins forward. . If you swap the battery leads the motor spins in reverse. .

Ok, that's basic。. Now lets say you want a Micro Controller Unit (MCU) to control the motor, how would you do it? Well, for starters you get a device that would act like a solid state switch, a transistor, and hook it up the motor。.

NOTE: If you connect up these relay circuits, remember to put a diode across the coil of the relay. .This will keep the spike voltage (back EMF), coming out of the coil of the relay, from getting into the MCU and damaging it。. The anode, which is the arrow side of the diode, should connect to ground . . The bar, which is the Cathode side of the diode, should connect to the coil where the MCU connects to the relay. .


If you connect this circuit to a small hobby motor you can control the motor with a processor (MCU, etc。. ) Applying a logical one, (+12 Volts in our example) to point A causes the motor to turn forward. . Applying a logical zero, (ground) causes the motor to stop turning (to coast and stop). .


Hook the motor up in this fashion and the circuit turns the motor in reverse when you apply a logical one (+12Volts) to point B。. Apply a logical zero, which is usually a ground, causes the motor to stop spinning. .

If you hook up these circuits you can only get the motor to stop or turn in one direction, forward for the first circuit or reverse for the second circuit。.

Motor Speed You can also pulse the motor control line, (A or B) on and off. . This powers the motor in short burst and gets varying degrees of torque, which usually translates into variable motor speed。.

But if you want to be able to control the motor in both forward and reverse with a processor, you will need more circuitry. . You will need an H-Bridge. .Notice the "H"-looking configuration in the next graphic。. Relays configured in this fashion make an H-Bridge。. The "high side drivers" are the relays that control the positive voltage to the motor。. This is called sourcing current. .

The "low side drivers" are the relays that control the negative voltage to sink current to the motor。. "Sinking current" is the term for connecting the circuit to the negative side of the power supply, which is usually ground. .


So, you turn on the upper left and lower right circuits, and power flows through the motor forward, i。.e。.: 1 to A, 0 to B, 0 to C, and 1 to D。.


Then for reverse you turn on the upper right and lower left circuits and power flows through the motor in reverse, i. . E. .: 0 to A, 1 to B, 1 to C, and 0 to D. .


CAUTION: You should be careful not to turn on both circuits on one side or the other, or you have a direct short which will destroy your circuit; Example: A and C or B and D both high (logical 1)。.

Semiconductor H-Bridges We can better control our motor by using transistors or Field Effect Transistors (FETs). .

Most of what we have discussed about the relays H-Bridge is true of these circuits。. You don't need diodes that were across the relay coils now。. You should use diodes across your transistors though。. See the following diagram showing how they are connected. .

These solid state circuits provide power and ground connections to the motor, as did the relay circuits。. The high side drivers need to be current "sources" which is what PNP transistors and P-channel FETs are good at. .The low side drivers need to be current "sinks" which is what NPN transistors and N-channel FETs are good at。.


If you turn on the two upper circuits, the motor resists turning, so you effectively have a breaking mechanism. . The same is true if you turn on both of the lower circuits. .This is because the motor is a generator and when it turns it generates a voltage。. If the terminals of the motor are connected (shorted), then the voltage generated counteracts the motors freedom to turn. .It is as if you are applying a similar but opposite voltage to the one generated by the motor being turned。. Vis-?-vis, it acts like a brake。.

To be nice to your transistors, you should add diodes to catch the back voltage that is generated by the motor's coil when the power is switched on and off. .This flyback voltage can be many times higher than the supply voltage! If you don't use diodes, you could burn out your transistors。.


Transistors, being a semiconductor device, will have some resistance, which causes them to get hot when conducting much current. . This is called not being able to sink or source very much power, i. . E..: Not able to provide much current from ground or from plus voltage。.

Mosfets are much more efficient, they can provide much more current and not get as hot. . They usually have the flyback diodes built in so you don't need the diodes anymore. .This helps guard against flyback voltage frying your MCU。.

To use Mosfets in an H-Bridge, you need P-Channel Mosfets on top because they can "source" power, and N-Channel Mosfets on the bottom because then can "sink" power. .N-Channel Mosfets are much cheaper than P-Channel Mosfets, but N-Channel Mosfets used to source power require about 7 volts more than the supply voltage, to turn on。. As a result, some people manage to use N-Channel Mosfets, on top of the H-Bridge, by using cleaver circuits to overcome the breakdown voltage. .

It is important that the four quadrants of the H-Bridgecircuits be turned on and off properly。. When there is a path between the positive and ground side of the H-Bridge, other than through the motor, a condition exists called "shoot through". .This is basically a direct short of the power supply and can cause semiconductors to become ballistic, in circuits with large currents flowing。. There are H-bridge chips available that are much easier, and safer, to use than designing your own H-Bridge circuit. .

H-Bridge Devices The L 293 has 2 H-Bridges, can provide about 1 amp to each and occasional peak loads to 2 amps。. Motors typically controlled with this controller are near the size of a 35 mm film plastic canister. .

The L298 has 2 h-bridges on board, can handle 1amp and peak current draws to about 3amps。. You often see motors between the size a of 35 mm film plastic canister and a coke can, driven by this type H-Bridge. .The LMD18200 has one h-bridge on board, can handle about 2 or 3 amps and can handle a peak of about 6 amps。. This H-Bridge chip can usually handle an average motor about the size of a coke。. There are several more commercially designed H-Bridge chips as well. .

There! That's the basics about motors and H-Bridges! Hope it helps and be safe!。.

See also the DPRG H-Bridge Project for a do-it-yourself H-Bridge design with full schematic and PCB artwork. .

L298 H-Bridge PCB Project。.

April 1998, by Jim Brown August 2002, page format revised, links update by NCCProject Summary. .

The goal of this project is to create a carrier board for an L298 H-Bridge with 1000mf cap, 12 diodes, a terminal block for power and two motors, and a header for interfacing with a microcontroller。. The board is based on a simple L298 H-Bridge design by Clay Timmons. .

Note that the board can be made using just the bottom artwork。. The top artwork is informational only and contains text explaining diode orientation and pinouts。.


Photo of assembled v1. .1 L298 H-Bridge Board. .


Color image of v1。.0 PCB artwork Schematic Diagram。.


You use in1 & in2 for direction and enablea for pwm for motor 1 You use in3 & in4 for direction and enableb for pwm for motor 2 The L298 H-Bridge PCB artwork is licensed under version 2 or later of the GNU GPL。. This means everyone has the freedom to use this design for any purpose, to study it, to copy it, to distribute it, and to change or improve it, provided such changes are also made freely available to everyone。.


Fujitsu will "ROBODEX2003", the launch of its HOAP-2 robot, in the inherited advantages of two years ago, HOAP-1 basis, but also added many features:. .


Head, hands, and parts of adding drive motor HOAP-1 do turn, take action, get up, etc..;


After lowering the motor impulse, by the current of the motor control and improve their performance;. .


Continue with the same open HOAP-1 hardware interface, based on this, the user can freely programmable, suitable for robot control, research and development.

Technical Features:. .


--By robots, computer, power constitute a unified system; closely.


- High 50cm, weight 7kg miniaturization HOAP-2, a simple exercise control, and application development;. .


--Computer OS using RT-Linux, development language C, C + +, an open software development environment.


- Reduce motor backlash, can achieve a smooth and stable movement;. .


--LAN using the USB interface in the body, easy to implement new drive unit and sensors Add;.


- Two control modes:. .


1. from an external computer to accept instructions by Wired control.


2. Built-in central processing unit to perform wireless control. .


HOAP : Humanoid for Open Architecture Platform。.

Technical details: joint degrees of freedom. .


6DOF/foot * 2.


4DOF / wrist * 2. .


1DOF/lumbar * 1.


1DOF / hand * 2. .


2DOF/head * 1.


Total (25DOF). .


Joint angle sensor: sensor.


Optical two-phase incremental coding, joint encoder Resolution: 0. .01deg/pulse. .


3-axis acceleration sensor:.


Measuring range: +2 G Resolution: 0. .005 G. .


3-axis angle speed sensor:.


Measuring range: +60 deg / s Resolution: 0. .25 Deg / s. .


Plantar pressure sensor: 4ch/foot.


Square foot (location). .


Expansion port for USB robot body extensions * 6 (USB1. .0/12Mbps) control cycle 1ms control pattern to control the location directive and the current value of directives control.


Software can override control curing power DC24V × 6. .2 A (150W). .


Overall planning.

Maze car control system design for the three main aspects: first, control circuit design; 2, sensor selection and placement location of the design; 3, programming. From the general considerations, the use of the number of sensors should be as little as possible to reduce the amount of signal processing single chip, but it must enable the car running smoothly. Control circuit according to selected motor and sensor design, the main consideration stability, anti-interference. .

1. circuit design.

Control circuit mainly motor drive circuit, MCU interface circuit, power circuit. Taking into account the motor starting current and the relatively large braking will cause the supply voltage instability on the microcontroller and sensors easier to interfere with the work, so the motor drive circuit and microcontroller and the sensor with opto-isolation circuit. Sensor directly 24V battery power, microcontroller 7805 will power through the 24V power conversion to 5V. Here the main description of the driver circuit about:. .

Car use 24V DC motor for low power DC motor speed control, there are two General methods.


(1) The linear type. .


Use the power transistor as a power amplifier output control of DC motors. Linear-driven circuit structure and principle of simple, low cost, acceleration ability is strong, but the power loss, especially for the low speed high torque runtime, through resistance R of a current, fever, loss of big.


(2) pulse width modulation. .


Another is the more common PWM (PULSE WIDE MODULATION — — PWM), which means there are speed characteristic speed is fine, smooth, speed adjustment range, overload capacity, able to withstand frequent load impact, also enable frequent stepless quick start, brake and reverse, etc..

Therefore decided to control the DC motor using PWM method. PWM speed control is divided into two-way and one-way and two. .


① two-way.


Figure 1 shall be more commonly used PWM speed control circuit, a pulse period (T = Ta + Tb), T1 and T3 conduction time for Ta, T2 and T4 conduction time for Tb, so that this period of time Ta , the electrical current through the positive, in this period of time Tb for the inverse current. When Ta = Tb when the motor stall, Ta> Tb when the motor is transferred, Ta. .


Figure 1.

② one-way. .


One-way-circuit more two-way. The difference is that when the motor is turning, Tb this time not by reverse current, motor flipped, Ta does not pass forward current. Its basic principle is the same with each other. One-way and two-way, transistors switching frequency half, less prone to upper transistor breakover caused power supply circuit, therefore, increased reliability, but the control performance is two-way. External characteristics, low-speed performance is good two-way.


Figure 2. .


Figure 3.




The above two ways of taking into account the advantages and disadvantages, and walk the labyrinth robot on timing accuracy is not too high, and saving, device loss and so on factors that decided to adopt unilaterally PWM. Taken into account when programming may produce the T1, T2, T3, T4, conduction, and even power short-cut, burn-out devices. To avoid this situation, as shown in Figure 4 of the circuit.

This circuit use only one transistor control circuit off, with four relays control the flow of current to control the steering motor. This in any case, the reasons are not arise because of programming power short circuit caused the situation. .

As a result of single-chip control motor, if the SCM power and motor of the same power, although after the regulator, filtering, but single-chip is still susceptible to interference with motor and relay, to avoid interference with, the use of photoelectric isolation, SCM and electric power. As Figure 2 red box shows, 4N26 optocoupler generally require more than driving current 2mA, because SCM output current of only a few hundred ?A, so you need to add a triode 74LS245 or add additional drive capability (74LS245 's high level drive capability for 15mA). Optocoupler's output were followed to Darlington, given the motor short circuit current 2A, but using the TIP132 Darlington transistor models (the maximum allowed by the instantaneous current 8A). Also in the Darlington C-pole and power of a positive indirect flow resistance of the diode 2A (blue box), so that the power is off, so that relay RP, allowing electrical discharge, so car does not lead to inertia and sliding too far (Experimental results show that if we do not diodes, the same initial speed, the car continued to advance in power after the 20-30cm, for instance with two pipes to move forward as long as 10cm or so). .


Considering that walk the labyrinth robot on the motor speed and distance control requirements, in order to simplify the procedures and the external circuit, therefore, did not take into account the use of closed-loop PWM control, using the open-loop PWM control can implement the functionality of the car.


Figure 4. .

2. sensor:.


1, Sensor choice:. .


The car you want automatic navigation features and avoidance must be perceived leader lines and obstructions, the perception of the leader lines is a vision and to the car. Robot Visual features there are several ways, using CCD camera for image acquisition and recognition, but this method, in the capital cost more, but also involves image capture, image recognition, for the sake of simplicity, using multiple reflective photoelectric sensor. Reflective photoelectric sensor has a variety of sources, from the infrared light-emitting diodes, general LEDs, and laser diodes, the first two sources are vulnerable to interference from external sources, while the laser diode light emitted more frequently than the concentration, the sensor only small a frequency range to receive the signal, not easy to be disturbed. For obstacle detection, you can use the ultrasonic sensor, and the results better, but compared to a mechanical sensor (Micro Switch) cheap, easy to use, without providing power. .


Figure 5.

2, sensor placement locations. .


(1) mechanical sensor:.


Placed in the forefront of car, when the car hit the wall when the latter obstacle, mechanical sensors will be able to single chip an interrupt signal to notify the MCU obstacles need to change direction. .


(2) photoelectric sensor placement: (shown in Figure 6).


Among the four sensors to detect whether the car go the wrong, the first two to reach the junction to judge whether the car, followed by two for the turn, the car's position adjustment. .


Figure 6.

The following table lists several main sensor input conditions:. .


III. program design.

Main program plays a major function of orientation and decision-making, when the car decided to do. Various functions to achieve the main car by calling a specific subroutine. Subroutine in the following:. .


(1) detection photoelectric sensor subroutine: depending on your needs you can read directly from the port, but in order to prevent signal interference and errors, using delay read is first read after the delay time to read, if the second reading of the signal and for the first time, you may interfere with the signal and then read and compare until two reads the signal line.


(2) routes subroutine: for setting the route. .


(3) used for the control of PWM subroutine: motor speed. 89C51 chip no PWM output function, you need to programmatically. In order to output PWM wave, the SCM will still be able to execute other programs, you can take advantage of the single internal timer overflow interrupt. Duty cycle takes up one byte of RAM, duty cycle D = N/256.


(4) to determine intersection routines: the sensor input values to judge, to determine whether the reach junction. .


(5) delay timer function subprogram:.


(6) turn subroutine: When the car reaches fork in the road and need to call this procedure when turning. The car needs to reach the main junction turn slowed down, adjust the position, steering, and then move on. .


(7) straight line subroutine: car in direct leader lines when the adjustment process. According to the center of the four photoelectric sensor feedback values to determine the car from a distance of leader lines, and on the basis of the deviation from the distance, the speed of the motor for the left motor is the differential for Dolly's deviation from the adjustment (PWM is a produce using SCM internal interrupt cycle around 8ms square wave, by changing the width of the high level to change the motor speed). As shown in Figure 6, lower half of a car deviated from the guide line is the case when the revolver slows down until the sixth car map sensor again detects 2,3 No. guide line, that is, on half a sheet of graph, although the car at this time return to guide lines, but the road car line is not parallel to the direction and guidance, will once again deviated from the car, so car driving down road becomes S-curve, and the arc will eventually growing out of guide wire, so if derailed car, you do the next mark, when the car driving back to when the guide wire (middle value of the four optical 0110), calls a subroutine to adjust, according to the procedures for deviation from the previous car, with different degrees of adjustment。 This means that, in the car back to the leader lines when (as in the figure), the right motor stopped end time, so that the car driving directions to correct back, and parallel to the leader lines.

The following is the main program flow chart:. .


IV. policy: walk the labyrinth.






Appendix. .


Reference:.


[1] Hu and Han was edited. Microcontroller Theory and Interface Technology. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 1996. .


[2] Bell about first, houwelingen authoring. Computer control of mechanical systems. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2001.


[3] Variation in any extension of group crisis Shengjun, eds. PROTEL99 Circuit Design Guide. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2000. .


First, the chassis structure.


1, the robot's chassis with 3mm thick magnesium alloy, so that meets the requirements of structural strength and stiffness, but also to save weight. .


2, taking into account the robots by photoelectric sensor identification of ground and guiding the work of the white line, in order to reduce the run-time other outside lights on the surface of the retro-reflective sensor, and makes the robot generates an error. So the design of robot chassis possible low so as to enable the use of their own shadow on other external light source for shield, reducing photoelectric sensor error response probability.


3, the robot looks beautiful out of consideration, the robot chassis using elliptical shape design. Ellipse major axis is 600mm, the short axis 400mm. .


4. photoelectric sensor arrangement (fig).


To achieve set features: a straight line, turn. Were arranged in the chassis 8 photoelectric sensors. No. 1,2,3,4 which used to implement a straight line features, and can speed correct for four straight lines to ensure good function. No. sensors for detecting 5,6 bifurcation junction, No. 7-8 horizontal line sensors arranged in the body and coaxial with the two momentum wheels arranged for the body and the fork in the road before turning alignment, precise steering . .

Second, the propulsion system.


1, as considered necessary and the speed of the road space requirements of wheeled robot forward by way of a driving wheel diameter of 100mm. .


2, in order to increase power wheel friction with the ground, reducing the dynamic power of go slipping movement caused by the dynamic wheel peripheral package on a layer of sponge tape to increase friction. Ensure the robot movements to respond in a timely manner.


3, power wheel and motor shaft is connected by links. .


Coupling size like chart:.


4 Couplings and connections between the chassis frame with a bearing over. Bearing Model:. .


Bracket size like chart: ￠ 14 * 20 * 10.


Department of bearing shelves. .


Bottom bracket.

3, steering system. .


1, steering structure.


According to the robot to complete specific tasks and requirements, the robot must have to flexible, bend radius as small as possible which turned the course of the geometric center of the robot itself is offset as small as possible. Therefore, the design of the robot used in Figure:. .


Main power wheel separately placed on the body and left sides, front and rear support department apply universal wheels, but taking into account the existence of universal wheel itself, but turning radius location is too high, do not meet design requirements. It adopts its own turning radius and low installation height of the ball with tops. In order to keep the robot in the process of turning the overall Geometry Center does not offset is too big, and turn left after the line, so the two support wheel friction damping should itself is small enough, while the steel wheel the ball fits the above conditions. Structure using this shift, the robot can do 0 radius (geometric center of change) of the 360 ° free turning, fully able to meet the design requirements. .


2, steering modes.


Straight road in peace, if the deviation occurs in Figure:. .


The unilateral adjustments, i.e. to the left, the right wheel slowed or stopped (by offset size).


Revolver continued to operate until the offset to eliminate same again after the two forward. And vice versa. .


In turn, the left and right wheels differential, because the organism turning design, conducted two rounds of inverse differential steering geometry Center enables the robot to remain intact, which does not affect the trajectory of turning back.


4, power system. .


Robot powered by two 24V DC motor. Motor rated no-load speed 288r/min, speed walking robot theory 1. .5m/s, considering various resistance loss actually traveling speed of approximately 1. .2m/s. Taking into account the motor run time resulting from electromagnetic pulse and alternating electromagnetic waves may have on the photoelectric sensors and microprocessor disruptive power of robot using three sets of power supply: 24V DC motor DC power supply; photoelectric sensor 18V DC power supplies; SCM 5V DC regulated power supply. Between the power supply to each system independent of each other, reduce public access to reach the objective to minimize interference. Reduce the system because malfunction caused by electromagnetic interference, improve the stability of the system work. .

5. upper structure.


The upper structure of the robot is a. .5 MmX1. .5 Mm aluminum profile structures of the two-tier platform to place the microcontroller and power supply. Framework of the inter-board package with a blow. In order to prevent the work from the motor and the relay and the electric spark generated when the electromagnetic pulse interference on the microcontroller, in blow molding the inner lining of aluminum thin plate and the grounding of the electromagnetic wave shielding. Work to further improve the stability of the system. .

6. comparison with the original system's advantages.


1, the mechanical structure. .


Due to the mechanical structure with sealed gear box to replace the original external nylon gear reducer, which greatly improves the accuracy of the system, reducing the system structure of pine open power output loss while increasing service life. Low chassis, greatly increasing the stability of the body during exercise. Low installation height of round steel ball with tops in place before and after the support Department of universal wheels, greatly improving the flexibility of body movement and achieving a zero RADIUS (Geometry Center) of the 360 ° turn freely. Oval-shaped chassis form factor than the original square, more elegant.


2, the sensor arrangement. .


This robot has adopted eight photoelectric sensor, significantly less than the original 14 photoelectric sensor. In the implementation of all the target function, reduced manufacturing costs, benefit and future business development. It also reduces false positives due to sensor systems don't cause wrong action, improve system stability.


3, anti-jamming capability. .


Using low-chassis (h = 18mm) than the original high chassis (h = 40mm) has a higher stability. While the chassis has been using its own shadow to the light source to other external shield, reducing photoelectric sensor error response. There are three sets of independent power supply instead of a set of public power, reduce public access loop induction caused by interference. Use cushioned ground for aluminum thin on electromagnetic wave shield than the original open-style structure, effective basic shielding electromagnetic pulse interference. The system is safe and stable work.


Converting a Floppy Disk Drive into a Simple Robot (Part I). .

Chris Barron, April 2001 。.




some important details missing。. In essence the idea of converting a floppy 。.


disk drive into a small vehicle which could be made by someone just. .


starting out in robotics, or even a kids summer camp, is easy enough to do 。.


once the practicalities of switching on the motor without having it. .


connected to a PC is worked out。.

A look at the pinouts of a standard floppy drive came in very useful. .


and it has been simple to establish that all we need to do is to ground 。.





supply the drive with 5V on its power connector。. Once you've taped up the 。.


write protect switches the drive spins up immediately. .

To identify the pins just have a look at the PCB around the area of the 。.


edge connector and you'll hopefully find that they are screenprinted to. .


identify pin 1 or pin 34, or both, or even all pins !! 。.

Turn the drive over so that the pins are like this:. .

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33.


2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34With the exception of pin 3 which is +5 V, all the odd numbered pins. .


are ground。. So to ground pins 12 and 16, squeeze 11 and 12 together with 。.


pliers and solder and do the same for 15 and 16. . The power connector should be to the left of this connector. . If it is,. .


the power plug pin nearest this long edge connector is our +5V input and 。.


the next one along is negative, 0V. . If the power plug is on the other side, Though I've never seen one like. .


that before, you will need to plug it into a PC power plug to get it 。.


right. . The red wire of the power plug is +5 V and the yellow is +12 V, the. .


two black ones in the middle are innevitably 0V Assuming you have shorted the pins and connected 5V as explained you 。.


might think the drive should run. . It wont do it unless either there is a. .


disk drive which isnt write protected or you have taped up or soldered out 。.


the write protect switch. . It might be worth shorting out pins 11 with 12 and 15 with 16 some. .


other way, perhaps with jumpers and then applying 5V to the power line 。.





which will work with just a single 5V supply。. You could generate the 12V 。.


from a bank of AAA cells or a couple of 9V cells with a regulator if you. .


had to。. Once you have established that your drive spins freely with these 。.


simple modifications you can be sure it will definately work for our. .


purposes。. So far, nothing you have done is irreversible you will be 。.


pleased to hear, just in case you have a change of heart. . The next step is to remove the internal disk carriage. . These are very. .





the following untouched. . The electronics. . Although not being fully utilised I havent figured. .


out how to do away with them 。.


The disk motor. . Absolutely essential!. .


Head stepper motor。.If you hope to make your robot steereable you 。.


need this motor, as well as the mechanism for moving the head which is. .


connected to the motor shaft as well as the home position sensor, which 。.





Mounting rails。.Look carefully to identify them, usually are the 。.


pieces of metal which the external screws go into when mounting the. .


floppy drive in a PC。.

In addition to this, the following parts,. .


which could be replaced by anything of your own design, will help you 。.


immensely. .

Some old hobby servo horns, a drill with a 3mm bit, some 3mm piano wire 。.


to make 2 axles from, some model plane 'wheel collars' 3 / 32 "I bought 4..


for 1 pound fifty and the ever popular cyanoacrylate glue 。.


'Superglue / cyano / crazy glue' as well as some fast setting epoxy, a 4xAA. .





soldering iron. .

Excluding the cost of the drive, this should make this project 。.


affordable to almost everyone. .

So you have gutted your drive and are left with an alloy chassis with 。.


electronics on one side and nothing but a disk motor, a stepper motor and. .


a sensor on the other。. So lets build the drive system first, and see what 。.




From your collection of old servo horns you need to pick two round disk 。.


ones, aproximately 30mm diameter and superglue these together with the. .


larger flanges on the inside。. Once the cyano has set, you might also want 。.


to fill the hole between these two disks with some of the fast setting. .


epoxy to strengthen this, the drum assembly。.

This is the winding drum which needs to be fitted, glued, directly to. .


the disk motor platter, but before you do, file,scrape,otherwise remove 。.


any obtrusions which will prevent the drum assembly from sitting perfectly. .


flush with the motor platter。.


The next step is to make up the axle supports at the rear. . This what. .


the mountign rails were for。. If you turn these upside down and over so 。.


that they protrude from the back of the drive you can still get one of the. .


mounting screw holes to line up。. Take a bit of time to do this because you 。.


could be as lucky as me and find there are two nylon bearings on these. .


rails。. If so, attach the rails with these bearings as far away frome the 。.


drum motor as possible because we are going to put the rear axle into. .


these bearings。. But if you dont have nylon bushes on your rails you will 。.


still be able to use them because you can fit the rails in such a way that. .


one of the old screw holes is at the farthest end away from the motor, 。.


they just might need drilling out a little to suit. .


Next you need to cut the rear axle from the 3mm steel rod。. Basically 。.


cut it to a length to give you an axle which extends 10-15mm beyond either. .


chassis rail, when mounted in the bearings。. The rear axle needs to be 。.





glueing a cotton bobbin onto it。. Theres a size of bobbin which is in 。.


between the common fat one and the small machine one and its one of these. .


you want。. Diameter is about 15mm。. Probably you will find the internal 。.


diameter of the hole of the bobbin is so large that it cant be fitted. .


centrally onto the 3mm axle shaft。. If this is the case go and take a look 。.


at the guts of the drive you have already removed and you might find some. .


spacers which will do the job nicely。. If not try getting alluminium tubes 。.


from a model shop of increasing sizes from 3mm to the size of the bobbin. .


hole。. By slipping one piece of tube inside another and cutting it to 。.





sellotape onto the axle to bring the diameter up to the right size。.

Now you have the axle cut to length slide it into its bearings, at the. .


same time loosely sliding on whatever it is you are using to build up the 。.


axle diameter to fit the bobbin as well as the bobbin itself. . Also fit one. .


wheel collar to either side of the bobbin 。.

Then just glue all the parts together. . With the tubes I recomend you. .


slide them out of each other a little way and spread epoxy on them。. Do 。.


both ends the same, and then glue the bobbin in place, also with epoxy, in. .


such a way that it sits in the middle of the axle。.

Once its all dry you can fit the drivebelt, which is just a rubber. .


band, of the wide variety if at all possible。. Just unscrew one of your 。.


chassis rails and slip the belt on. . If you cant find the right length of. .


rubber band its simple enough to double up a longer one, or use several 。.


narrower ones if need be. . You'll need to experiment a little eith the. .


length of the belt because if it is too tight its going to make too much 。.





be evident ;because when you rotate the band through 90 degrees to fit it 。.


to the axle it leaves and returns to the drum at very obtuse angles. .


One thing to be careful with too is the final alignment of the axle to 。.





as best you can before you finally glue the chassis rails in place or you 。.





drivebelt。. Using a smaller diameter drum might help here if you have 。.


20-25mm round control disks to hand. . Then apply liberal ammounts of epoxy. .


to the rails where they meet the disk drive frame to hold them in place。.


Once thats all dry you just need to make up a couple of wheels. . I used 2. .


model aircraft wheels which look pretty good but something as simple as 2 。.


more servo control disks would suffice. . Again these can be fixed to the. .


axle with the epoxy glue。. Its a case of make do and mend 。. Another neat 。.


way to make wheels is to glue together some of the metal disks from the. .


centres of floppy disks themselves, but mind you dont run them on polished 。.


floors!!!. .


Converting a Floppy Disk Drive into a Simple Robot (Part II)。.


Chris Barron, April 2001. .

Now that the drive system of your FloppyBot is complete its time to 。.


support the front of the robot. . You need to decide wether or not you want. .


to steer the robot。. In which case you need to modify the front of the disk 。.


drive to make a simple steering wheel assembly, the end result being a. .


three wheeler。. If you dont want to go to the trouble of a steering unit, 。.


then a front axle is easier to make than the rear as there is no cotton. .


bobbin to fit - the axle supports can be made from residual disk drive 。.


internals, shaped to hold the axle in place and then screwed or glued to. .


the chassis, OR some of those hobby servo control arms have a hole in the 。.


centre which holds a 3mm axle just right, just gluing these to the front. .


sides of the chassis will be enough。. If you want to make the unit remote 。.


controlled you need to desolder pins 15 and 16 and fit a push button to. .


two wires soldered to those pins, giving you a simple forwards/stop 。.


switch. . If you are connecting FloppyBot to a PC or microcontroller then. .


you need only to write your software to ground the wire to pin 16 to make 。.


it move forwards. . Bear in mind that although the unit might not be moving. .


forward when pin 16 isnt grounded, the drive electronics are still 。.


connected to the battery supply and will flatten your batteries fairly. .


quickly if you dont remove them for the battery holder ! 。.

Assuming you want to build a steerable three wheeler take a look at. .


your head stepper motor to see if it has a metal sensor interruptor which 。.


passes over the stepper leadscrew and lines up with the home position. .





only bend this up to a 90 degree angle to complete the making of the. .


steering servo: 。.


If you have a plastic interruptor, its time to dig out your second. .


last hobby servo control arm and glue it in place on the head carriage to 。.


make a servo arm that functions and lines up the same as the metal one in. .


the photograph 。.

So you need another hobby servo arm! And it fits onto the chassis as. .








photo below。. I dont have to tell you how important it is to not drill into 。.


the edge connector itself. .! Now take a piece of 3mm shaft about 80mm long. .


and fit it into the chassis hole。. Next fit the servo arm onto this shaft 。.


and position it on the edge of the drive chassis so that the shaft stands. .


vertically out of the chassis when viewed from the end。.


Once you are happy that your steering shaft is vertical fix the hobby. .


servo arm in place on the edge of the chassis using some epoxy and leave 。.





This can be the ordinary single arm type or like me, you could opt for the 。.





model boats to control the rudder, I believe its simply called a 'steering 。.


arm 'and is very cheap. .


The last task which requires some strength is to make a 90 degree bend 。.


in your steering shaft, perhaps about 20mm from the end and fit your. .


nosewheel。. The fit of the nosewheel isnt as critical as it is for the rear 。.





If the glue for the hobby servo arm support bearing on the chassis has set 。.


you can slide the unwheeled end of the steering shaft first into the. .


bearing arm and then into the chassis hole and check that everything is 。.





shaft bearing and the chassis hole in such a way that once it is tightened 。.


up the steering shaft cannot be pulled back out of the chassis. .

As you can see from the pictures above, the thing missing now is the 。.


control arm which links the - once head stepper motor - now steering servo. .


to the steering arm/shaft assembly。. The most common way to make these 。.


control arms is to use some thin piano wire, bent to suit with pliers. . If. .


you are wrapping it around the servo arm and not passing it through a hole 。.


in the arm, make sure it fits tightly in such a way that the steering arm. .





position sensor can be left in place, quite probably the drive wont work. .


properly if it is removed。. I'll do some research into the standard way of 。.


bypassing this sensor but in the meantime leave it where it is and. .


unblocked。. If it is disconnected then you will only be able to steer in 。.


one direction because the drive electronics will be convinced that the. .


sensor is blocked and wont allow any more movement in that direction。.

So now you can test if your particular steering linkage works and is. .


free from obstruction。. The way you do that is by presenting a pulse train 。.


to pin 20 of the drive. . But briefly, you can touch pin 20 lightly with the. .


end of a piece of wire which is connected to ground, which will create 。.


enough noise pulses to make the steering servo move. . Once you reach the. .


end of travel of the stepper motor you need to ground pin 18 and hold it 。.


grounded while you put your pulses onto pin 20 to make it move in the. .


opposite direction。.

Now you won't always want to have to rub a wire onto pin 20 whilst. .


grounding pins 16 and 18 to get your robot to move around the room so its 。.


time to make a pulse generator. . The circuit is very simple and uses a. .


standard NE555 timer integrated circuit。. This timer is configured in such 。.


a way that when it has completed a timing period of X mS it resets itelf. .





switching low-high-low-high etc. . The frequency of the timing period is set. .


by the ammount of time it takes to charge a capacitor through a resistor, 。.


the higher the value of the resistor or capacitor, the longer this time. .





because its versatility means it can generate pulses as short as 1mS and. .


shorter, or as long as 1S and longer。.








The switches on the prototype were made simply from some brass strips soldered. .


to PCB pins。. The beauty of using brass is that although it is fairly rigid it 。.


remains easy to cut and bend and can be joined in pieces by simply soldering. .


I used a piece of ribbon cable to connect the four important wires to 。.


pin 18, pin 20, positive and negative, but any wire of 4 cores or more. .


would obviously work。. The 3 switches are for controlling forward, left and 。.


right. . Any push-to-make switch would work. . A good source might be from an. .


old recovered keyboard where you have 125 or so to choose from。. The diode 。.


between the left and right switches is a 1N4148. . Although almost any. .


general purpose diode will work。. Although 4AA batteries dont last very 。.


long, they do at least give you an idea of how this robot moves and if. .


needed, larger batteries could be used。. However its not recommended that 。.


you use more than 6Volts. .

It may be that when used on a hard surface that the front steering 。.


wheel has little effect on direction. . This is because of the very wide. .





tendancy there are three things you can do, both of which work, it just. .


depends on the surface as to which works best。.




closer to the bobbin。.


Use a front wheel which has lots of grip. . This increases the overall. .


drag on the robot and should be a last resort。.


Remove the glue from one of the rear wheels so that only one wheel. .


is driving the vehicle forward。.


The finished product, with a new 4AA battery holder ready to be. .


connected up 。.


Toshiba prototype concept model of a household robot "ApriAlpha". The conceptual model using speech recognition and speech synthesis technology can talk with people, using image recognition technology can identify a person registered in advance. And in the April 3, 2003 beginning at the Pacifico Yokohama "ROBODEX2003" display. .


The conceptual model is equipped with newly developed using distributed object technology open, so you can easily append new features. In addition the company will also refer to the display is equipped with a direct methanol type (Direct Methanol) fuel cell model, in which the fuel cell will serve as the main power supply of the auxiliary power battery.

Toshiba, the trial of the "ApriAlpha" the concept of "information appliances robot" concept. In connection with its home network devices and between those who use these devices as a "human interface (Human Interface)" so that everyone is very cordial and simple to operate home appliances. Will increase in future domestic support, care, and the functions of light work, so as to enable the elderly to the development of family members and assured life partner. .

The product through the speech recognition feature may be based on the voice to indicate its actions. If the distance calls, you can determine the location of the sound and came up. In addition you can also use text-to-speech function sound. You can also read e-mail. Use of image recognition technology can recognize up to 100 individuals face. In addition, you can follow people walking.

Robot equipped with IEEE802. .11 B wireless LAN. Can use the built-in camera to capture images sent to portable information terminals, home remote monitoring from the outside the situation and can be manually operated. Through a home server and network appliances such as Bluetooth appliances interoperate. Appliances can be used as multi-purpose remote control. Through i-mode FOMA handsets can support the transmission of digital camera images, for manual operation, and notification. Map data can be used indoors and monitor circuit automatically generated path specified location.

The company has established the use of distributed object technology, "Open Robot Controller Architecture (ORCA)" and developed based on the architecture of new controller, which makes the "ApriAlpha" in with all kinds of extensions easier. The controller is not dependent on CPU and OS can easily import the motion control, communications, image processing, speech processing and a variety of sensors and other elements needed for the robot technology.This conceptual model in the trial, by reusing and import the company so far accumulated industrial robot, atomic energy facilities maintenance robots, cosmic robot motion control technology, car navigation voice recognition and voice synthesis technology and security with image recognition technology, enabling the development of new software to a minimum.

If you use the controller architecture and the development of the robot even if the OS can also change the CPU to re-use feature technology software and can easily be embedded in software developed by other companies and so on, which can develop in a short time is efficient. Consideration to the future in various areas to promote 使用 robot must have an open Shikongzhiqi Architecture (ORCA), the robot will Kaifa of Manufactures, importers, University 以及 Yanjiu Suo Yi Ji future Kaolv enterprises involved in the field Huyucaiyong the The controller structure of the company to promote its popularity. .


Sony has recently announced the successful development of Biped robot "SDR-4X II", and decided on 3 April 2003 to 6 October personal robot exhibition on display at the "ROBODEX2003" (fig). New robot in addition to the enhanced interactive features, enhance communications capabilities, but also in the sport performance improvements have been made to ease the impact of the fall.


To strengthen dialogue and features a new robot equipped with a dedicated voice recognition and voice synthesis CPU. Thus, in the original model "SDR-4X" external PC achieved through large vocabulary continuous speech recognition can be completed independently by the robot. It is said to use about 20,000 words. .

In addition, to extend the memory of dialogue functions, not only remember the interlocutors of the face and a name, but also can remember the interlocutors in dialogue with words. Therefore, when a new robot and the same person a second meeting was not only able to recognize each other's who he is, thinking past the content of the dialogue. So you can come across people who "have feelings". The original models of robots can only think of face and a name.

In addition, motor function, the main strengthening the control of fall time. The new robot out of balance in walking in the fall, they can make independent judgments and to avoid falling. If you still can not avoid the fall, then it will be before and after testing about which aspects of their fall, and then reduce the impact of the position taken in the direction of fall will be to mitigate the impact on the group itself. And have the fall stand up on their own after the function. .

In the area of security is of major importance to avoid getting stuck in the joints. In the unlikely event something stuck robot joints, joint contact sensors installed will be able to detect the torque through the regulator cuts to prevent jams. In addition, hold the handle of the new robot back to it, its joints will lose power.


Why NQC programming language? . .

By virtue of the getting started easy, powerful (includes powerful data, image processing and analysis capacity), ROBOLAB to preferred RCX programming, this software also tired Prix (including Apple's best educational software award in education, BETT, etc.). However, as the ancients have "an inch ruler, has been short," I think the ROBOLAB variables (called the ROBOLAB container) is not very good, in addition, some have a C language programming who re-learn ROBOLAB is a burden. Fortunately, we have other elections, I strongly recommend NQC. .


NQC logo.

NQC is the acronym for Not Quite C, which is not complete C language, he is a Lego enthusiast named Dave Baum developed for the RCX programming language, the syntax used in exactly the same as traditional C, but increased Several developed specifically for the control of several orders RCX, NQC has the following advantages: the same syntax and C, if the foundation with the C language can be learned in a day or two. Using the standard Lego firmware. Multiple integrated development environment (IDE), features are good. Support for Windows and Linux platforms.Detailed information on the substantial information on the Internet. More flexible than the ROBOLAB, particularly sensor control, a more flexible than the ROBOLAB, if you use your own development of sensors, so very container defines NQC. The variables than the ROBOLAB operation more convenient. Software and information are all free. The latest version in addition to supporting the RCX, LEGO, Spybot Cybermaster and Scout. Brick Command Center (NQC an IDE) to support the latest version of the unofficial firmware LegOS. Support multiple platforms --Windows/Linux/Mac. .

Above these advantages allow NQC become the best choice in addition to ROBOLAB.

Here are a prepared to use NQC walk along the black line robot program:. .


How to get the compiler: NQC.

NQC compiler can bundle of Dave Baum's website. Need to download the NQC, can go to Dave Baum's NQC website. .



If there is no IDE, on the program can only be compiled under DOS. In order to use NQC, I recommend that you use the IDE, in many IDE, I recommend using Bricx Command Center (BricxCC). The software was originally RCX Command Center, now changed into BricxCC, the current version is 3. .3, this software is perfect, in addition to providing NQC compilation environment, also offers many tools, such as monitoring, memory view the RCX, etc, very convenient debugging, now supports USB version has infrared transmitter.


Bricx Commadn Center 3. .3 Programming screen. .


BricxCC offers a variety of tools.


BricxCC one of the tools - RCX variable view. .

You can go to the developer's home page, downloads, download the package already contains the compiler NQC, so you do not need to download a compiler Dave Baum, however this site often cannot access, if you want to webmaster @ robotdiy. .com wrote. In addition, because the software has been included in Sourceforge, you can go here to download this software, March 6, has just released 3. .5 .5 version .7.. '.

Note that, BricxCC Lego can provide official firmware download function, but it fails to provide the firmware file (usually firm0328.. Lgo), you need from Lego Mindstorsm SDK 2. .5 Website to download this file before we can achieve this function. .

In addition, you can select the BricxCC.

NQCEdit:. .


Relatively simple NQC IDE was 226K, now with version 1. .75. Note that the IDE package does not contain NQC compiler (nqc. .exe) so you need to download and put it in the same directory. Home position.

Visual NQC:. .

It is also a good IDE, unfortunately, seems to have been a long time did not update the home page is not found.


Other operating systems:. .

NQC in addition to supporting Windows platforms (95, 98, ME, NT, W2K, XP), you can also use the Linux/Mac NQC.

Linux:. .

Install the RPM file.

NQC Installation Howto - Linux. .

Mac:。.

MacNQC. .

Be:。.

BeNQC. .

Solaris and FreeBSD:.

Can refer to: http://www. . Baumfamily. .org / nqc / unofficial. . Html. .



If you wish through your Pocket PC to control the RCX, then you can use as they prepare NQC compiler. .

NQC for WinCE in Japanese Web pages.

RCX and Palm. .

Other resources:.

NQC detailed description (in English, including the NQC API, etc.). .


Robot slowly from the factory base to people's lives, as we have said they are robots, not a machine, so some scientists hope to be able to add expression, the name of the robot has 28 K-bot..


U.S. scientists have developed will smile and laugh at the robot, according to the inventor of introduction, the robot's facial expressions up to 28 species. This "female" robot named "K-bot", she can make 28 different facial expressions, including smile, laugh, frown, bending and other expressions. Camera installed in her eyes, so that any person can make a person's response. .

The robot's face is composed of conductive polymer made from a block of artificial muscles constitute 24 so that robots can make facial expressions. The robot maker Texas University, David · Hansen, previously manufactured robot "Chianti" can only make 4 facial expressions. "This is a real ' human face '!" said Hansen.

The robot weight 2 kg, from a face, composed of muscle and a launching device. The robot sells for 400 U.S. dollars, but Hansen think that if you can mass production, prices may be cheaper. .



However, who specializes in robotics and two-way exchange of MIT Media Lab researcher 森赛亚布里奇 that now produce movies like "Star Wars" in the robot did not really reality. "Development of robot science fiction is difficult, because the science fiction robots proposed standards for the most high." Bridge said. .


In general the robot Kit, power typically use DC motors, DC motors and control the most common is the PWM (pulse width modulation), shown here the basic concepts of PWM and design considerations.


PWM or Pulse Width Modulation refers to the concept of rapidly pulsing the digital signal of a wire to simulate a varying voltage on the wire. .This method is commonly used for driving motors, heaters, or lights in varying intensities or speeds。.

A few terms are associated with PWM: Period - how long each complete pulse cycle takes Frequency - how often the pulses are generated. . This value is typically specified in Hz (cycles per second). .Duty Cycle--refers to the amount of time in the period that the pulse is active or high。. Duty Cycle is typically specified as a percentage of the full period。.


In the above diagram, the duty cycle is shown at 50%. . The pink line shows the average output and you can see that at 50% duty cycle, the output averages is roughly 6V or 50% of full power. .Below is a diagram of what a 25% duty cycle PWM signal looks like:。.


NoteThe human ear can hear frequencies up to roughly 20kHz. . When using PWM at frequencies below this, the device being driven can often be heard to buzz. . Higher frequencies avoid this. .

NoteWhen controlling motors, much greater PWM efficiency is achieved at frequencies above 20-30 kHz。. The collaps of this induction field takes some time; driving the motors at high PWM frequencies keeps this induction current in the motors at all times, resulting in much higher efficiencies。.


Handy Cricket is Handyboard successor to the controller using the PIC family of single-chip computer, the software using the Logo language, as with Handyboard, Handy Cricket is MIT's Fred Martin development. Handy Cricket Technical Information. .

The core Cricket design was done by Brian Silverman and Fred Martin。.




The Cricket has the following feature set: Microchip PIC? microprocessor with built-in Logo interpreter。. 4096 bytes of user program and data memory。. This memory preserves your program and data even when the Cricket is turned off and batteries are removed. . Outputs for two DC motors. . Two plugs and one bi-color LED on each output. .Inputs for two sensors。. Sensor value may be read as true/false or converted to a number from 0 to 255。. Two bus ports, which allow the Cricket to interact a large collection of other devices。. Built-in infrared transceiver with raw data rate of 50k baud. . Power supply provided by four AA cells. . Piezo beeper, program run / stop button, power LED, and program run LED. .

Here's a big close-up picture of the Cricket。.

Handy Cricket Hardware Description. .

This document presents an overview of the hardware design of the Handy Cricket。.

The Handy Cricket's primary components are the following: PICmicro ? microprocessor. .The Handy Cricket is based on the PIC16C715, which includes 2048 bytes of one-time programmable ROM (burned with the Handy Cricket operating system), analog inputs, and digital I/O。. The PIC is the "brain" of the Handy Cricket. . Serial EEPROM memory for user programs. . Compiled user code is loaded into a 24LC32 memory chip, which provides 4096 bytes of non-volatile storage. .This chip is an IrDA component, but the Handy Cricket uses its own modulation scheme, so the Cricket isn't compatible with conventional IrDA devices. . Dual motor driver chip. .The Texas Instruments SN754410NE dual H-bridge motor driver allows the Handy Cricket to directly power two DC motors。. Assorted I/O components。. The Handy Cricket includes two analog sensor ports, two bus expansion boards, a piezo beeper, a run status LED, and a run / stop pushbutton. .

Let's look at the Handy Cricket circuit design in detail。. Here is the schematic diagram。. Circuits in Detail。.

We will discuss the circuit based from the PICmicro ? PIC16C715, progressing clockwise from pin 1 of the microprocessor. . Serial EEPROM. .

Pins 1 and 2 of the PIC16C715 are connected to the clock and data pins of the 24LC32A, the 4096-byte serial EEPROM memory。. The PIC communicates with the 24LC32A using the Philips i2c protocol, an industry standard inter-IC communications method. .

The 24LC32A holds the compiled Logo program that is executed by the Handy Cricket。. Also, non-volatile data can be written to the memory by the user code。. Array data and recorded sensor data is stored in the memory along with the executable Logo code. .Run / Stop Button and Run Status LED. .

Pin 3 of the PIC is multiplexed to control the Run Status LED and read the Run/Stop pushbutton。.

The pin is driven low to turn on the Run Status LED (indicating that the Handy Cricket is executing a Logo program). .To check if the Run/Stop pushbutton is pressed, the line is allowed to float; if it is read as low, then the button is pressed。.PIC Reset Pin。.

Pin 4 of the PIC is the microprocessor reset pin. . It is permanently wired high, allowing the processor to run normally at all times. . PIC Ground Pin. .

Pin 5, Vss, is the microprocessor ground。.IrDA Circuit。.

The Handy Cricket uses a Sharp GP2W00001YP IrDA transceiver for communications. .This is an IrDA component rated for communications up to 115 kbaud, but the Cricket uses its own byte-oriented modulation scheme which provides an effective data rate of about 50 kbaud。.

There are several resistors and capacitors associated with the IrDA circuit, implemented as per the data sheet recommendations. .C1 and R4 provide the IrDA part with a degree of isolation from fluctuations in the main logic power supply。.

Pin 6/Port B0 of the PIC accepts the digital IR receive signal from the Sharp component. .This pin is the external interrupt pin, and the Cricket's software uses an interrupt routine to implement the receive data processing。.

Pin 7/Port B1 is the digital transmit signal. . R2 and C4 provide the recommended method of interfacing this signal to the IrDA component. . R3 limits current through the transmit LED. .Finally, R5 and LED5 provide a visual indicator of transmit activity。. Bus Expansion Ports。.

Pin 8/Port B2 is the bi-directional Cricket bus signal. . The Cricket bus is a custom "one-wire" protocol that allows a master Cricket to communicate with a collection of connected slave devices. .For more details on the Cricket bus, see http://handyboard。.com/cricket/tech/bus。.shtml。. Piezo Beeper。.

Pin 9/Port B3 is the piezo output signal. . The Cricket gives a "boot beep" every time it's powered up; tones of varying pitch and duration may also be generated under user program control. .Motor Control Circuit。.

Pins 10 through 13/Port B4-7 are the motor control pins. . The motor control circuit is based on the Texas Instruments SN754410NE dual motor driver. .

The SN754410NE provides two “H-bridge” motor control circuits。. Each H-bridge has three inputs: left-side input,right-side input, and enable。. When the left-and right-side input pins are opposite values (10 or 01), and the enable is high, then current flows through a motor connected to the drive pins. .

PIC pins 11 and 12 control the Cricket's motor A output; pins 10 and 13 control the motor B output。. The enable signal for motor A is generated by OR'ing the two motor A control signals together, using one of the OR gates provided by U5. .This circuit allows the Cricket to provide four operating modes to the motor:If the two control pins are 0, the enable will be off, and the motor outputs are idle。. If one output pin is high and the other is low, the enable will be on, and the H-bridge will drive the motor one way or the other. .If both output pins are high, then the enable will be on, but both halves of the H-bridge outputs will be driven to the same voltage, and the motor will be actively braked。.

The SN754410NE chip has two power inputs: a logic supply (pin 16, Vcc1) and the motor power supply (pin 8, Vcc2). .The motor power supply is connected directly to the battery, after the Cricket's main power switch。.

But the chip's logic supply is switched by a pair of OR gates! If both motors are turned off, then then is no need to provide logic voltage to the motor chip. .The chip uses about 20 mA of current when it's sitting idle (motors off), so removing the logic voltage provides a substantial current savings。.

Two of the four OR gates in the U5 package are used to switch logic power to the motor chip itself. . The two enable signals are OR'ed together to produce the logic supply voltage. .If either or both of the motors are enabled, the supply voltage is provided。. Gates U5a and U5b perform this OR function and are wired in parallel, doubling the current available to the SN754410NE chip from the OR gates. . PIC Power Pin. .

Pin 14 is the PIC's power pin。. The normal logic supply voltages is applied to this pin。.PIC Oscillator Pins。.



Pins 17 and 18/Port A0 and 1 are used as the Cricket's two analog sensor inputs。. The PIC provides an 8-bit digital-to-analog converter, allowing the Cricket to convert sensor voltages to a numeric range of 0 to 255. . Handy Cricket Software. .

Cricket Logo is a compiler that translates a dialect of Logo into the byte codes。. There is a strong correlation between Cricket Logo primitives and the byte coded primitives understood by the runtime interpreter. . This documentation explains the Cricket's run-time system. .It's possible to create new programming languages for the Cricket by translating from your own language specification into the byte codes understood by the runtime interpreter。.




Handy Board by MIT's Fred Martin, it's processor for 68HC11, 32K memory, software for Interactive C. Due to its reasonable structure and extensibility, currently applied to the United States universities such as MIT's curriculum 6270.

The Handy Board is a 6811-based microcontroller system that lets you build mobile robots for educational, hobbyist, and industrial purposes. .People use the Handy Board to run robot design courses and competitions at the university and high school level, build robots for fun, and control industrial devices。. This site is the home page and resource center for users of the Handy Board. .


Handy Board Hardware。.

The Handy Board is based on the 52-pin Motorola MC68HC11 processor, and includes 32K of battery-backed static RAM, four outputs for DC motors, a connector system that allows active sensors to be individually plugged into the board, an LCD screen, and an integrated, rechargable battery pack。. This design is ideal for experimental robotics project, but the Handy Board can serve any number of embedded control applications。. Schematic DrawingsCPU and memory schematic motor driver circuit digital input circuit analog input circuit infrared transmitter infrared receiver power supply circuit interface / charger circuit miscellaneous parts。.

Version 1. .2 Schematics pdf document (all 9 pages; 70K). .

The Handy Board Expansion Board。.

Click here to see the picture expansion boards. .

Features。.

The Expansion Board plugs on top of the Handy Board, and provides the following features: 10 additional analog sensor inputs; 4 inputs for active LEGO sensors (reflectance sensor and shaft encoder); 9 digital outputs; 6 servo motor control signals with power supply from the Handy Board's internal battery; optional external power for servo motors; connector mount for Polaroid 6500 ultrasonic ranging system; general-purpose electrical prototyping area; pass-through connector for the Handy Board's LCD screen

Handy Board Software Resources. .

The Handy Board is a based on the 6811 microprocessor with 32K of static RAM, so just about any 'HC11 development tools may be used with it。. A wide range of options are available for developing software on the Handy Board, including free assembly language tools provided by Motorola, and commercial C compilers. .

Additionally, the Handy Board is compatible with Interactive C, the programming environment created for the MIT LEGO Robot Design project。. Interactive C (IC) is a multi-tasking, C language based compiler that includes a user command line for dynamic expression compilation and evaluation. .Originally created for student use, IC has a wide range of applicability to research and prototyping efforts。.





On the main characteristics of the machine: SDR-4X.




Based on the it robot can bump and inclined surface, can also be imposed by force of circumstances keep gait for real-time control.


- 10mm or so in uneven uneven walking surface. .


-Be able to climb the slopes around 10 degrees.


- Applied external force, can automatically avoid, to prevent falling. .


-Fell to prevent shock, can automatically adjust and maintain a certain posture and ease joint impact.




Use sensor feedback information, adapted to the actual road conditions, real-time adjust stride walk cycles, the angle of rotation, and generate the necessary gait pattern. Implementing dynamic stabilization of gait.

3) The Real World Space Perception Technology (Real-world Space Perception Technology). .


Use of installed in the head of two CCD camera, can detect the distance between the subject and thus perception itself and the distance between the ground and obstructions, and make use of this information is automatically generated to avoid obstacles in the path of travel.


Head installed seven microphones can detect sound direction. .


４）Multi-modal Human Interaction Technology 。.


1, personal identification learning technology. .


In the complex background detect human face identification. Leverage learning skills for a maximum of 10 remember recognition of different people, you can rely on voice recognition that different people.





Use of wireless local loop (wll) and external computer synchronization communication, fast continuous speech recognition, you can also use an external computer dictionary of new words learning and memory.


3, memory-based dialogue and behavior control techniques. .


Using CCD camera access to people and places of information to be robots short-term memory, the same dialogue and human interaction, to in-depth long-term memory man faces and names, the robot is able to record a dramatic interaction information, so as to be able to achieve on more complex dialogue and actions.


4, voice synthesis and voice generation. .


Can be combined both people with good entertainment. You can enter the songs and lyrics, voice synthesis technology.





5, hands and adopt security design, enhancing the security of your interaction.


6, than the robot SDR-3X increase in freedom, enhanced expression. .


4-axis on the head increases the degree of increase in one degree of wrist, five finger movements can independently.


7, to strengthen too small drive. .


And use of the driving unit SDR-3X, SDR-4X use drive initial torque, rated torque, increases efficiency 30%, respectively, 15%, 20%, making the robot's movement and answering performance significantly increased.


8, SDR Motion Creator. .




CPU64-bit RISC processor (2) Memory 64MB DRAM (2) OSAperios (SONY unique real-time system) robot control architecture OPEN R Media 16MB MEMORYSTICK transfer control program joint degrees of freedom. .

Head: 4 degrees of trunk: 2-DOF wrist: 5 degrees of freedom (2) legs: 6 degrees of freedom (2) an independent hand: 5 means (2) total: 38 degrees of infra-red sensor range: 1 dual head mode: 2 acceleration.

Stem X, Y, Z / 3 axes; leg X, Y / 2-axis angular velocity of stem X, Y, Z / 3-axis force sensor for low enough temperature of the external 4 * 2 with 4; internal sensor head with two tactile sense low pressure rubber feet shoulder taktswitch sheetswitch hand sheetswitch 110 000 pixel image input 1 / 5 inch CCD color camera voice input voice output speaker microphone 7, input and output interfaces. .

PC card (TYPE II) * 1 memory stick * 1 tip eye color ear LED monochrome LED4096 POWER LED2 color walking speed.

Maximum: 6m / min (not the entire floor) Stride: 10cm. .

Walk cycle 1 sec/step.

Maximum: 20m / min (smooth surface) Stride 6. .5 Cm. .




NEC latest robot PaPeRo, and it produced the first generation prototype - R100 compared to seem lighter, smaller and more powerful. .


。.


What is PaPeRo? . .

As early as January 1997, began the "NEC personal robot program", the aim is to develop a home-based personal robots. According to this idea, after more than two years of research and development, NEC electric for the month of July 1999, created a "R100 Personal Robot." R100 with recognition recognize voice commands and exchanges with users. It aroused widespread interest. But NEC electric does not stop, they continue along this road. They study focused on the interaction between human and robot functions above, and was finished in January this year, second-generation prototype development work, it is the will of all the PaPeRo. .

What's new? PaPeRo.

PaPeRo lighter, smaller, more processing power. .


The latest semiconductor technology and manufacturing process. PaPeRo has become lighter (from the previous generation of 7. .9 kg to today's 5. .0 lbs), smaller (height by 38 mm to 44 mm), and has a more reliable, more secure, high-speed processing and communication capabilities.

PaPeRo is an independent personal robot! ! . .


R100 in dealing with the distal end of the audio and Visual information, you need a PC. The PaPeRo can separate processing this information.

From the laboratory into the homes of ordinary people. .







PaPeRo can identify the number of everyday language and receive a considerable degree of increase (from 100 up to 650), can use everyday language number has also been increased (300 to 3000). It has two interactive mode: "moving mode" and "talk mode".

PaPeRo can we do? . .

Figure 8 walking mode: when the PaPeRo no people and Exchange, it will be in room DIY strolled aimlessly or looking for a person.

- When PaPeRo their walk in the room when, through internal vision and ultrasonic sensors, it can avoid the process of hitting moving furniture and other obstacles. .

-Looking for people of PaPeRo, if you feel tired, and it seems like people stopped to take a rest, or simply not found.

- When PaPeRo a message to the family of a person's time, it will automatically search for the man, then told him the information. .

-If someone call PaPeRo that uses sound direction detector identify the source of the sound, and then be immediately available to you here. When the PaPeRo found the target, it will use the stereo camera to take their distance and proximity. If the PaPeRo can identify this person, it will be called out his name. If this person is not able to recognize or PaPeRo PaPeRo recognition fool it, it would be "turned off..."


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Conversation mode: when the PaPeRo has found, it will try to communicate with that person.


PaPeRo will share with you the following forms: gossip, dancing, quizzes, fortune-telling, play games, send and receive audio-visual information, play a TV remote control to browse the Internet information, so you know the time, computing time, act as alarm clocks and so on. .

Communicate with people.


* When you're talking to when, PaPeRo using its visual processing is always trying to form a face to face with your state. .


* PaPeRo by its visual processing technology can be put down your face.


* When you pat or stroke PaPeRo's head, it will make the appropriate moves - a variety of expression. .


* PaPeRo has feelings and the appropriate parameters, which makes the robot and you become more intimate. PaPeRo on your response is based on you treat its behavior. If you have it good, it favors; if you don't do a good job on it, it turned to you evil.


* Robot through the "dance" way to express its feelings. .


* Papero write down everyone with its AC frequency, time and content. It also remembers home each Member's birthday and gender. These data are very important, because the PaPeRo to communicate with you when they are based on those stored in its memory, so that the contents of PaPeRo interaction varies from person to person.

PaPeRo How does it work? . .

1) remote control transmitter. It can transmit TV control infrared signals to your home television remote control.



3) touch sensor. When we touch a robot head, this sensor can feel to it. Once you have touched, the robot will become very happy, it's this person's emotion parameters may increase.

4) CCD digital camera. The robot's eyes is to use two CCD cameras, which not only can capture vivid images in due course, also be able to identify these images. Through it, PaPeRo can very smooth running, will not hit the furniture and other obstacles. Through it, PaPeRo can find a familiar face, after measuring the distance between each other and then around this person. .

5) LED (light emitting diode). In order to realize the robot, the robot's mouth and face time to assemble the LED is on. Robotic ears LED indicates whether it is listening to, in the eyes of the LED is to indicate whether he is reading. When the robot is looking for one, its eyes flashing green LED is on. When the robot finds it are looking for people whose eyes are going green; when the robot in his memory to find the man looks and recognition, eyes LED will turn orange.

6) The detector for the microphone at the sound source. Above the robot, a total of three such microphone. Through them, the robot will be able to identify the direction of the sound has heard. .

7) used for the speech recognition microphone. This Assembly robot head recording has back-detection capabilities. Because the robot always tries to maintain a face-to-face with the speaker and the microphone and the speaker's mouth to keep pace.

8) ultrasonic sensor. In the robot, a total of five ultrasonic sensors. When moving, these sensors enable the robot feel the distance between obstacles and themselves. Ultrasonic sensor data and visual data can be used in conjunction with, and for the visual data as an effective complement to information, especially when obstructions or obstacles in the camera's blind spot, when suddenly, it will become very useful. .

9) at the bottom of the sensor. It can make the robot takes note of the Office in front of the hole in it.

10) increased sensor. When the robots rise time, it can make the robot to detect the following conditions have occurred. .



PaPeRo basic parameters. .


Height 385 mm.


Width of 248 mm. .


245 mm. thickness.


Weight 5. .0 Kg. .


Battery life of 2-3 hours.


Battery charge time 2 - 3 hours. .


Identify the number of idioms about 650.


Can be expressed by the number of about 3,000 idioms. .





Monsieur II-P of the mobile very fast, in order to 150mm / s, while the original Monsieur mobile speed is about 10mm / seconds. MonsieurII-P depend on both sides of the wheels installed in the mobile, using the thick wheel drive only 0. .4 Mm ultrasonic motors. This motor in November 2002 at the "micro-machine development" on the show, the Seiko Epson said that can be used for small water pumps and zoom for mobile phones and so on, no mention of using the robot. Ultrasonic motors and stepper motors than can get more drivers. .

Through Bluetooth module can be equipped with wireless control Monsieur II-P. For example, you can also start a few robot let them dance. Because embedding this functionality, the volume ratio of approximately 1cm3 Monsieur increased a lot. In addition, there is a track light Monsieur..

Monsieur II-P thread 3 +1. .7 V to drive the air zinc battery. 12. .5 G weight, batteries accounted for 4. .3 G, external decorative weight 2. .5 G. Bluetooth controlled by the movement of the rate of about 70mm / s, when not controlled by Bluetooth 150mm / sec. Can walk for 5 hours. Not yet clear when the robot into the product development stage. "Will be put into the market response to the decision problem" (the company's propaganda department).Allegedly, will also consider the Monsieur II-P for humanity cannot enter the confined space and other fields of application.

Seiko Epson will be held April 3 to 6 at the Pacifico Yokohama "ROBODEX2003-Robot Dream Exposition" on display at the development of robots. And plans to be staged at the venue arranged by the designer of ballet movements and directed the "world's smallest robot drama." .